Word Bread Pudding

For K
With text lifted from Alex Garkavenko's "Vertical Bunkers: Why to Hide in a Skyscraper During a Nuclear Fallout"

Although nuclear fallout
may not be as prevalent
in the public fear as
it was in the '60s, we should
perhaps still be worried

Booskiferous my favorite mist cellar is
our lingo tango club + you know
we have codes ready no cracking

the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory has not
only tested the optimal
building conditions for blocking
radiation, it

no hacking downloaded the secret
parts+ parcel app for chat + fire

in the streets we are flame veins
+ huddling in each other's red
red chambers teamwork breathing

has also assessed
the risk of a number of scenarios

I'll sic the torches back on any reisner
with fists aflame for your face + fooz
them to shame gouda gouda? the haps
are glaring out there/ronkonk/I keep seeing
the man in the dark wig + monster face
in the alley behind Winkie's/the mug
is changing color from the heat

Typical fallout shelter location.
Obviously, construction materials
are also crucial,

Dear Al it's Caribou it's Betty time for
Boole fool tutes I want to French
kiss our second crafted tongue at that lil
open mic we covered Wittgenstein conference
room you so scattered what time is it what
year is it we'd be good spies if we could play
amnesiac in the streets/question game in the

Sheetz

people are only afraid of brain surgery

because

of the pain but it actually works wonders
we resist sneak off to cross-dress as Mr. Hon

and the thicker
the material the better

+ M s. Charm City we resist + change the

calendar

in the interest of gentler holidays+ gel pens for

we giggle at witchcraft + get turned away from

the

Lithuanian border for lack of ID we tear up
the concrete to adult purple rock star tinny
speakers/I careen free ways to keep our
portmanteau alive + unballooned
though we don't know for sure what that will
do

although the optimal shelter
still proves to be the underground
bunker, hiding within the core
of a skyscraper would also give you
a decent amount of protection

or what Hector's got left/oh Vermeerski lull
me bai but wake me up in time to block
the highway wake me up in time to glower
over press+ eggs+ plot to save the bell foundry
or climb the roof snap a second of the sunrise
before they take that too we've gotta be goats
we gotta head butt bump it/for one sec though
just
fold me into our own word salad or I hate
salad so let's just say our word bread pudding

Indeed, the soaring built
environment of a tall city
is exactly what is needed
to survive this particular
kind of apocalypse.

A dessert not particularly coherent but made
of many ingredients that feed you deep

For one stretching moment
we are so dangerous
that we are safe.

published in Snapdragon Journal, Spring 2017

Caroline DeLuca is a freelance writer, editor, and writing workshop facilitator living in Brooklyn. Her writing has recently appeared in Verbaleyze, Lost Tower Publications' Greek Fire anthology, Zeniada, and Lab Culture.