Vulva-Shaped Bonbons By Matthew Dickman

It occurs to me that I have not mentioned the beautiful poem that Matthew Dickman wrote about our chocolates in a while.

He wrote it last year or so, but it’s so nice to be reminded of it that here it is again.

You might know cutie-pie Matthew from such places as The New Yorker, or his great first collection of poems. If you haven’t read any of his work yet, I envy the awesomeness you are about to discover.

 

Vulva-Shaped Bonbons

By Matthew Dickman

for Lagusta Yearwood

The kitchen of Le Pigeon is empty

but for the ghosts of Bordeaux and pork bellies, a dark

black cherry sauce. I’m walking home

through a district

of porches and tea-lights lighting up backyards and living

rooms. People must love each other

here. Have you ever stayed up drinking

all night and in the morning

wake up feeling like the Irish Republican Army

found out you voted for Home Rule, pushed you in a van

while you slept, and woke you up

by cracking your head open with a metal pipe? I keep thinking

that my life would be better

if I ended up in an abbey with a wooden bowl and a wooden desk

to eat and sleep on. I was feeling alone

and miserable when the chocolates Lagusta sent

arrived in a big white box. Peanut butter cups and triangles

full of coconut and cream, little spicy ones

made with peppers like a Lorca poem. After the first one melted

over my tongue

it was all blue stockings flashing through the grass and springtime

though it’s January, ridiculous

horn sections and string quartets. The chocolates are amazing!

One minute you’re listening to Leonard Cohen,

looking around the house for a razor

you can run along your arm without the worry of fainting,

and the next your mouth is full

of vulva-shaped bonbons, you’re speaking French, writing apologies

to all the women you’ve kissed, cutting

everything red into the shape of a heart, breaking

like a storm and then forming again into a kind of brave, beautiful, parade.