Burnt sugar spotted fingertips red-brown
like henna. Ornamental mud both sweet
and blistered. It looks ugly as it fades.
I would have sucked out the stains

if I’d been given the chance. I want to
laugh, and I want to shiver with the girl
perched on the barbecue, her personal
wheelbarrow, tearing down Walton hooked to

her sweetheart’s bicycle. Still, I hear those
peals and I wonder if it’s true what you
said, that I am a flippant creature.