Adventures in 5/30

she says
       "write a poem about how there's crack in my cupcakes"
i say
       "but there's nothing poetic about crack"
she says
       "does it have to be literal crack?"
i chuckle
she says
       "can you do metaphoric crack?"
i ask
       "have you ever seen a literal crackhead?
        not like the ones people joke about
        in stand-up routines?"
she asks
       "have you?"

i think about the twitch in a brown girl's arm
as she loiters around a bus stop
she is more coal than cocoa this days
more aftershock
than quake

she says
       "maybe we should stop joking
        about there being crack in the cupcakes"