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)