Eight: argument (poetry series)

argument

You’re a sugar cookie, you’re a fashion plate

When dressed by experts

you sit, deadly tasteful, a smug subdued disc

sporting a simple initial

You’re a peanut butter cookie, you smell nice

in the oven, you pair well with chocolate milk

you disappoint a little, why? perhaps

it’s your neither-here-nor-thereness…

Lacking the star quality of a tollhouse

Maybe you’re a snickerdoodle, a gingersnap

the import more adult

but short of a white pepper, sea salt

brie and brandied apricot

invent any basis

measure regardless

the argument is going places—

which the relationship is not

quizmakers like to chart your stars

data, however jury-rigged the source

is the sarcophagus to the reactor

a concretion that points to structure

as though answering for the contained interior

we agree that collections can be made

that this and that are objects

to appraise

we refute that our preoccupations have a heart

we battle still for a way of seeing love

or not seeing, the universality of

argument

question

(2021, Stephanie Foster)