Vera Kroms was born in Germany to Latvian parents and now works as a systems consultant in Boston. Many of her poems deal with the split between cultures. Her work has appeared most recently in Spoon River Poetry Review, Perihelion, Birmingham Poetry Review, and Asheville Poetry Review. The Prince of Sugar Vera Kroms                             I have been             the summoning lip                        of a Flemish hunger, a school           of limber certainty, the wit                inside the horizontal.                             Old enough        to need me, you arrive                   adoring the waste                        of logic. The three tests               of loving align your skirts              just so. An x-ray                             reveals a small fish who cannot sleep. I know                the future,                              all of them.                             I know                     how a bin of coins                 can chill a man, how ordinary            is silk when the worm is                    wearing it.                             I will take you            five letters beyond                      annunciation. I will still              the hive in your chest.                 This is my specialty. This is necessary harm.