Dear Dented Box of Cupcakes,

 

Dear Dented Box of Cupcakes,

All the toddlers weep at your disarray, preschoolers  
point out 

the ruin of your frostings, powdered sugar

pools 

like blue sand in your corners, and your devil’s food 
bundles, your Mini-Cooper carloads of lard 
are smeared, smashed,

among the fallen. 

Let this be the worst thing to happen today, 
a slip and an oops, 

some momentary grieving. Let this be 

the worst thing 

some of these witnesses will ever know. But of course 
that’s impossible. There shall be loss 
upon truckload of loss. Someone will die.

Someone will fall 

in love with somebody else. Might as well, 
I tell the children, (as I push them

aside) might as well try

for a smidge of icing.