He was my father’s leftover ziti,
heaped up by my curb appeal technician.
She had found me a shipwreck, had helped me conceive his powder blue boyhood
in the sunken cannon.
She plucked the posts off his fences, adjusted his scales into ladles
for her disclaimer soup.
She sealed him into a landscape of playing cards,
promising he’d come out a pufferfish you could rent for parties.
I’m already plotting our coagulation,
escalating him into fluffy oatmeal
that can finally dislodge the torte
shoved half-baked down my throat.