The Dictators' Guide to Good Housekeeping

Sestina: Government Cheese

I learned what lu­st was, waiting for the rise

of it on toast, a bright and brine conjugate,

flushed, then deepened into something more

like a rush of poppies, orange spilled

over yellow. Every summer we drove right

across town where men in a warehouse played catch

with oblong boxes, before they released to my catch

one box of silver-wrapped gold. Caramelized

satisfaction, a tincture of saffron for the summer's diet,

living off the fat of the land, as if milk and honey were all we ate,

was made with this wonderful food, government cheese. Grilled

cheese, toasted cheese, buttery hunks on greens or

spinach, cheese broiled on bacony potatoes, cheese poured

over broccoli, sandwiched with ham, string beans caught

in their yellow blanket, cheesy eggs, white bread n cheese. Fill

your plate with enough, your stomach bigger than your eyes.

Desire comes like that, a promise to immolate

hunger, that double yolk of worry and fear, until you're tight

with love, even if it's your grandmother's, even if you're eight.

Every summer I'd arrive more hungry, more

angry and always she tamed me with what we ate

and what she let me say. We caught

words from each other and played games with lies.

I'd open my mouth and words would spill, and spill.

Praise to my grandmother for an iron will

to feed me out of my fog. Gesundheit!

Dankeschön, bitte sehr, we'd say, a reprise

from her childhood she refused to unwind more.

I think about what is unspoken, what is taught.

What is left for us to create.

Marigold, memory, abundance, aureate.

Dubliner cheddar, deluxe singles, pepper jack, havarti dill,

brie, manchego, mascarpone, no government, all market-

bought. My husband feeds me cheese at night:

scrambled eggs with it, figs holding it, reservoir of pleasure.

Cheese with apples, green grapes, sparkling water, wine. I rise

sometimes, from our bed late in the night, let twilight

spill from the refrigerator's open door.

Let the kitchen fold me in til I’m sated, wanted. No longer surprised.