Say Goodbye to Baked Alaska

Say Goodbye to Baked Alaska

The meringue fails to rise.
Like a cloud reflection on a puddle,
it sags. The squall slams the doors shut;
the observer is trapped into observing
Icarus in the age of fire extinguishers.
The geranium slumps out
of its corner, brown flowers scraping
the floor for water. A skull lamp—
souvenir from Alaska—glows
red by the window. The ice cream claims
its urgency to melt. In this journey,
a succession of Tuesday afternoons
passes for an oil spill somewhere
in Prince William Sound.
What can levitate under such conditions
if not a fly? It’s buzzing around
the eggbeater now. The sponge cake
absorbs its own unwantedness
with a kind of photographic pose.