Sure Thing

I remember when dollars-to-donuts used to mean
a sure thing. Now,
it’s just a mosquito’s eyelash
from even money, and
you don’t need the Palomar observatory to see
where this is heading. Of course

I have always preferred
the donut, its spongy luxury and
silky goo, the
stubbled sweet intensity of sprinkles,
the raucous variety of frosted and jellied
stickiness; the donut is a universe of
transcendant pleasure and you can
have that empire of ice cream.

All those years when I never heard anyone
make the inversion: donuts
to dollars. The unstable dilemma of its
proposition: long shot
or someone just being
clever, or just a subtle way of
anticipating the inevitable
reversal of the unexpected and the dead
certain. Getting great odds,
on a sure thing.

As if words were designed
to unsay themselves. Unmean
themselves. Un-
donut themselves.

Dollars-
to-donutholes.