What's Bakin'?

Rise and Fall: To a Young Cake

with apologies to Gerard Manley Hopkins

Betty, have you folded
down upon yourself unmolded?
So high arose, as human airs bid you,
with your clotted sweetened cares, did you?
Alas! As buoyant bubbles bore
you up o'er high, unhinged your core,
the oven timer prattled through
your falling sighs, gave rise,
if you had listened, to
unwanted wheatmeal wise.
Such diaphanous ascensions 'guise
disastrous declensions. Like the blown rose,
like deflowered flour, now ripen all your woes:
though you wish that you had cak'd more
'tis but the gullet you were baked for.

by John Martin
in volume 4 issue 1

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