Ode to Chocolate



sjbestland copyright 2011

O Chocolate! here in candy store cases

you front the aisle of Bloomingdale’s, what Balzac

called “the great poem of display.”  You are

my first stop in a life-long pursuit of things

Forbidden.  Here, under glass gleaming, is my

Apothecary of blue-ribbon candies, edible pounds

of joy.  Chocolate sleek and sophisticated, you are

dressed in gold foils shimmering.  Chocolate clusters,

you draw me near with pecans that poke, beckon,

arouse.  Assorted chocolates tempt me: shall I taste

them all?  Reading their names - truffles, turtles,

caramels, creams - here are pharmaceuticals

for the gods.  I imagine lifting the lid - only a whiff

and I’m thinking about the chiffon suss of decadence,

the sugary swirl of indulgence, the titillating taste

of desire.  I sink my teeth into the tender skin and lay bare

a secret.  Is it chewy coconut?  Wild raspberry?  Milk chocolate? 

dark chocolate?  Frothy dubonnet...or wicked toffee carre’? 

I strut to the next department smacking my lips - decorative

tulips are piled high in translucent bins - full-grown flowers

plump with foliage cut from green silk.  I free the blooms

and spread them across the tile floor to make a lush garden

path.  I glide in heaven back to the Devil sweets, a lady

returning to her decadent lover.  What do I see in chocolate?

Romance and turpitude.  Passion and depravity.  Love

and idolatry.  Virtue and vice.  Sin and more sin.  Sin in a box. 

Sin in a bite.  I want to wear it.  Look how I take truffles

and twist them into my hair.  I wear creme de boulee’

like a crown.  I attach bonbons to my body like jewels. 

Strawberry fondants bedeck my arms; my legs

are adorned in assorted creams.  Look, my candied body

made harmonious with silk tulips.  Look how I cadence

with the garden’s color.  Look at my cocoa bean

eyes, my sugar-coated silhouette, my bouchee profile.  This

is what sin is: using temporal things to hide my nakedness.

O Chocolate!  I wear you as a gown.  I pouf and rustle, melt

and bustle.  Look, the sleeve designed of Hershey Blisses.  Look,

the bodice of plain and peanut M&Ms.  Look, the skirt of Tootsie Rolls.

Call me Ghiradelli.  Call me Frango.  Call me Fannie May. 

And you -

you may call me Godiva.