To top off my morning hot chocolate
Here at the office
I open a carton of milk,
One of the small ones--
Tear away the glue
And peel back two
Cardboard flaps along
Ready-made creases.
I pull back the triangles, and there,
Greeting me,
The Milk Carton Smiley Face.
Two eyes to show
Where to press your fingers,
A dotted smile,
Arrowed at the corners
Showing where
To push the triangles back,
To squeeze the smile
Into a fish face, and then
Release back:
A perfect diamond milkspout
Is created;
Just like new, like every
Milk carton ever.
I remember how Will Schmeeckle
And Anthony Flores
And me in the second grade lunchroom,
Would fold the cartons
Around little red straws
So the carton became
A tank. And we’d
impale
Helpless tater tots,
Dipping their chunky corpses
In ketchup blood.
Back then we never said anything
(Though we saw it every day)
About the Milk Carton Smiley Face.
But twenty years later,
Now, in a place I never
Imagined I’d be
That face appears again
And looks at me.
