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Potato Shame

I will tell you what nature never intended:
nature never intended that a potato should be cored
so that bacon, sage, anchovies, and garlic
could be stuffed up its new tract, and then baked.

 "An old-fashioned corer will work,"
the recipe said.  "Stuff in all the delectable goodness,
and then plug the ends with the core,
which now lies all over the counter,
except for the parts that lie on the floor.
Do not worry about the core sticking out a little!"

 I didn't have to worry about that.  
The plugs fell out before I got to the oven.  
And after I got to the oven, too.  

 The whole delectable goodness tasted
like a potato without bacon, sage, anchovies, and garlic. 

 I wish I had a picture of them:
you must imagine lovely new potatoes,
the color of tidy Yukons, 
lying on an oven drydock
as if they had been torpedoed lengthwise--
not by a proper torpedo, but by an apple corer--
parts missing, partly mutilated,
and ashamed of how they had been stuffed.  

 Today I am going to turn to a baked cauliflower.
What could go wrong!

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