Chocolate and the Afterlife
               

She wrote of it as no one had: of the men who picked the pods, dried the beans,
ground the nibs, walked home trailing a scent from the walls of Hansel and Gretel,
all the way to the Aztecs and Mayans. She hovered in kitchens, dipped her
fingers in blackened pots, stacked the recipes, shuffled them skillfully as a poker
player. Her cookbook was proclaimed the bible of all bibles. It bought her the land,
built the house, paid for a redwood deck, polished to the color of cinnamon. But
restlessness nipped at her. Travel caught her in its hot air balloon. Chocolate soufflés
deflated as she moved on. Next a stampede of wolfhounds with eyes one step from
the tundra. She trusted them. Whippets sleek as shadows moved in; she rescued
borzois, found homes for the neglected. Any four-legged creature, even as she
abandoned friends. I hadn't seen her for years when I got the call, standing at the
counter chopping dill. I'll rifle my cupboard for bitter chocolate, melt it down, pour
it from on high, a dark river to the afterlife.

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Copyright © 2012 Carol V. Davis All rights reserved
from Between Storms
Truman State University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission