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.
