ODE TO CHOCOLATE

I hate milk chocolate, don’t want clouds
of cream diluting the dark night sky,
don’t want pralines or raisins, rubble
in this smooth plateau. I like my coffee
black, my beer from Germany, wine
from Burgundy, the darker, the better.
I like my heroes complicated and brooding,
James Dean in oiled leather, leaning
on a motorcycle. You know the color.

Oh, chocolate! From the spice bazaars
of Africa, hulled in mills, beaten,
pressed in bars. The cold slab of a cave’s
interior, when all the stars
have gone to sleep.

Chocolate strolls up to the microphone
and plays jazz at midnight, the low slow
notes of a bass clarinet. Chocolate saunters
down the runway, slouches in quaint
boutiques; its style is je ne sais quoi.
Chocolate stays up late and gambles,
likes roulette. Always bets
on the noir.

Barbara Crooker

HOW TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR FATHER

Put your hands beneath his armpits, bend your knees,
wait for the clasp of his thinning arms; the best lock
cheek to cheek. Move slow. Do not, right now,

recall the shapes he traced yesterday
on your back, moments before being wheeled to surgery.
Do not pretend the anxious calligraphy of touch
was sign beyond some unspeakable animal stammer. Do not

go back further into the landscape of silence you both
tended, with body and breath, until it nearly obscured all
but the genetic gravity between you.

And do not imagine wind now blowing that landscape
into a river which spills into a sea. Because it doesn’t.
That’s not this love poem. In this love poem
the son trains himself to the task at hand,
which is simple, which is, finally, the only task
he has ever had, which is lifting
the father to his feet.

Ross Gay

THE SOUP

On the day of your scan I make a soup
to wean us from meat. Beans soak and blanch
an hour while I slit open the cell-
ophane wrap on the celery, chopping
the ribs into small pieces, the size
of the stones that follow an avalanche.
Carrots sliced into see-through orange mem-
branes, others hacked into jagged boulders, bi-
sected as though by the pressure of shift-
ing plates. Onions at knife point, suppurate
and toss themselves into the hot oil. What
is left? two blind see-no-evil potatoes.
Sweet herbs: I pull apart ovate leaves
of basil and sweet marjoram. Red kidney
beans slip out of their bladder skins, rubbing
against the Great Limas. Together,
they give off a kind of scum which keeps down
the foaming boil; instead it heaves and
swells, trembling like a bosom but does not
spill out. Thank God for scum! I rinse my knife,
watching its gleaming edge rotate under
the water; now there is only the wait.

Peggy Penn

WHY I DON’T DRIVE A NEW CAR

On the spring nights we drove them home
our first cars were beautiful:
sprung seats padded with greasy pillows,
chrome corroded, dings as endearing as freckles
and, when we leaned on the horns,
nasal bleats, foggy duck calls, or low and solemn farts.
We named our first cars:
Perdita, Joe Pickle, The Mermaid.
We had so many places we wanted to go.

Some mornings, when we weren’t home
but waking up,
the sight of our cars from a second-story window
was all that we had to lash us to the earth.
When one of our cars was broken
our friends roamed the terrible cities
to find us in front of our houses, waving frantic,
and took us into their cars,
safe between their laundry and their lovers.

And what was as pretty as young, unbreakable bodies
tumbling from old Volkswagens at Sandy Hook?
And, if a parent died, what rich consolation
we felt at the sight of a dozen or so of us
spilling like clowns from a Day-Glo painted Valiant.
No, I don’t need to be nagged to buckle my belt
in a voice as cold and fake as a Burger King milkshake.

Here’s to a car that a pal can puke Southern Comfort in!
Here’s to a car with a creamed corn can for a muffler!
Here’s to the discontinued and disenfranchised,
longing for those parts no longer available.
I’ll drive my rusting bones in a clamoring wreck,
a car like our first cars,
the cars that we loved
when we thought that we knew where it was
we wanted to go.

Catherine Doty

My Mother Had Red Hair

My mother had red hair. My mother said put yourself in the other person’s place. My mother took me to the bakery and let me pick out cookies. My mother tucked me in. My mother said it would be okay. My mother had a father who painted houses. My mother felt better with her lipstick on my mother died. My mother held my hand. My mother liked to sit in the garden my father planted. My mother painted gardens. My mother knew what I was thinking before I said it my mother gave me sisters. My mother asked the piano teacher for the Beatles instead of Mozart. My mother told me I was not allowed to hate. My mother read me Peter Pan. My mother didn’t know that she was beautiful. My mother said to me “Do what you have to do.” My mother never raised her voice. My mother liked boys with long hair my mother had red hair that everyone thought was dyed. My mother kept all her friends from childhood my mother loved her students. My mother said get rid of the guilt. My mother never told me to turn down the music my mother packed my lunch. My mother told me I would know it when I fell in love. My mother said “How can I let you go home?!” My mother helped me tie-dye a shirt. My mother said “Sal!!” when I called on the phone. My mother wanted to be a ballet dancer. My mother felt better with her lipstick on. My mother asked what makes this a poem. My mother didn’t know that she was beautiful. My mother told me it would be okay. My mother had red hair my mother held my hand my mother died my mother tucked me in. I put my mother’s lipstick on My mother my mother my mother my mother my mother.

Sally Lipton Derringer