Recipe for Success

Take a dollop of eighth-grade embarrassment
burn it in our cheeks for when doors
swing toward you faster than your arms can brace.
Befriend lost children in the produce.
Pitch your voice two feathers louder
than the hush of meeting your girlfriend’s
older brother. Never break plates.
Once plates are smashed consider
creating a mosaic. Keep broken glass
in a paper bag for two years.
Upon packing for a new apartment
discover bag of glass and discard.
Situate yourself in a seat corresponding
to your desired birth order.
Consider what a cape
might do for your aesthetic. Return cape
to store clothing rack. Mix it,
mix it good. Dispose of any mementos
in your memento box to which
the associated memory does not evoke
instant boil. Phone some cousins,
compare childhoods, lose touch.

Rachel M. Simon
Recipe for Success appeared in the journal Incliner, Cincinnati, Ohio, Fall 2004, and is from Theory of Orange (Pavement Saw Press, 2007).