Fifty more

o sweet mystery of life at last I’ve found youuuuu

sings Grandma to the cake as she dabs its rim

of cadaver wax icing

Grandpa comes back from the bathroom where

the pot roast and rat poison he’d eaten had

argued vehemently

the birthday boy their boy your dad has put up with you

for roughly half his life sentence

Grandma cuts the cake into a star

everyone holds out a paper plate begging for a Geiger counter

to the birthday boy you toast raising your spiced clam bifocals

here’s to fifty more

at which Dad groans smiling or is it wincing punctuated by the

just audible rattle you might make if the trailer home door

were to open just then and Glenn Gould

were to walk in flanked by two showgirls in swimsuits

in Gould’s left hand a dangling bikini top

in his right hand a freshly rinsed brain

prompting Grandpa to complain

what a horse’s ass of a time

all this has been