You can’t stop me from seeing
even if you cover my eyes—I will see reality.

Like that day
at the Barcelona bakery
that rainy Spanish day.
E and I think
we’re in bonbon bliss,
‘til the sweets on display
turn cyanide kiss
like falling in love with a narcissist
poisonous and lethal.

O Catalan cakes in every shape
covered in a light mist of forget it there’s no escape
rows and rows of cakes so scandalous they could kill.

I imagine sugar-craft crosses at their heads
inter-galactic sweet breads
from another galaxy
chocolate-glazed behind glass
my mind spins, orbit blast, body shakes
I’ve got an incurable case of cupcake heartache.

An altered cosmological deviation—
dipped in dark chocolate—a Godiva sensation
they’re an existential fudge distraction
pure as the z-machine, they shoot me with a shock vaccine.

I’d tie a cherry stem into an eternity
knot with my tongue
for the full-frontal fantasy
flavour of their cocoa cocoa bean.

Then again, I thought
why not just write a poem à la Kerouac, a sketch
to last in the-mouth-of-the-mind forever— yeah
through my sugar-buzz haze
So I decide to capture the cakes
with my camera
as digital dessert for later,
to lick the pix like a spatula into a poem—
butter—shutter—shutter—butter, lick
later, when I’m alone
click—click—click.

I hear, No pictures!
a preposterous pomposity approaches
on the other side of the cakes, and breaks:
No pictures!

He sounds cartoony—
so I ignore him and continue to simulate
the taste of the sweetest cakes
click—click—click.

He says:
Stop taking pictures of my cakes!

I think he must be joking,
But I love your cakes,
click—click—click.

Stop taking pictures of my cakes!

Sugar-laced, on your risqué cakes
I feel dirty—like they’re porno cakes,
click—click—click.

He says,
I don’t take pictures of your cakes
and you cannot take pictures of mine.

I say,
I don’t make cakes
so you can’t take pictures of my cakes
because there are no cakes,
and the operative word is cakes
they’re just cakes
they’re not sensitive material,
top secret spy cakes
click.

He yells: Stop!
he snaps, he freaks,
he streaks in front of the cake display case,
like a grand guardian of cakes,
blocks me from seeing his little master-pieces
arms and legs extended
like an monstrous starfish.

You can’t stop me, I say,
I’m a pastry paparazzi I say,

And I take digital snippets of the blessed bonbons
from between his dumb ass-teroidean legs
click—click—click.

He doesn’t get my joke
so I try again:
Come on, you’re selling cakes
the cakes are on display.
I could buy a cake
take the cake home
and do whatever I want
to that cake,
I could have my way
with any of your cakes
click—click—click.

Out of my shop! he yells.

Ha! I have seen your cakes
and your cakes have seen me
and now I’m going to write poetry.

He yells:
Remove this woman from my cake shop
remove her!

And that is when the Barcelona bakery bouncers
appear out of nowhere
grab each of my arms
and they throw me out the door
onto the ancient Gaudi streets,
like an ornery contrarian without a Patisserie
in the world.

The icing on the cake, my friend E looks down at me
and she sings:
Someone kicked the cake out in the rain.

Piece of cake, sometimes you
dream of being cream, other times you
end up being pound.

I almost had my cake, and ate it too.

©Sheri-D Wilson
Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe, Frontenac House (2012)