Cake and Eat It by Peter Daniels

Science tells us it can't be done
so it's no use trying to cheat it:
whichever recipe you've begun
the same result will complete it.
And for every time you repeat it
the experiment still comes true:
you can have your cake and eat it
but you can't make your cake have you.

A cake doesn't get possessive,
it should cultivate lofty disdain.
You won't find it nervously trying to guess if
you'll cut off a piece or refrain.
Marie-Antoinette – at the close of the reign –
observed as the blade sliced through:
“You can have your cake, and you can eat it again,
but you can't make your cake have you.”

Some people treat the whole world as their own,
a cake to devour with delight;
but a cake likes to make its decisions alone
and will play hard to get as its right.
Whenever Scheherezade lowered her light
she'd swear by her silk-tasselled shoe:
“You can have your cake and eat it every night,
but you can't make your cake have you.”

My dear, if I wasn't the angel I am,
I'd tell you just what you can do:
you can trick it; and prick it; and spread it with jam;
but you'll never
                           get your cake
                                                     to have you.