ghost cake

My brother used
to like the cake
but not the icing, so
at birthdays he'd carefully
slice free
both cake-layer wedges
and slide his plate
with a perfect cast-off cake-shape
of just the icing!

to me

(he
then mashed the cake itself
into
his ice-cream!)

And on his plate, now mine, this icing-shell,
perfect, still standing at attention, unaware
of its own untenantedness,
haunted its plate

a piece of ghost cake

awaiting
the same cold fate.