This week, we’re featuring poems about food and all the many ways it sustains us. Because food is community and memory. It’s struggle, joy, and so much more.

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Bliss Point or What Can Best Be Achieved by Cheese
by Benjamin Garcia

A.k.a.

    the other gold.

                Now that’s the stuff,

                              shredded or melted

                                        or powdered

                                                     or canned.

                                                               Behold

                                      the pinnacle of man

                         in a cheeto puff!

Now that’s the stuff

                         you’ve been primed for:

                                             fatty & salty & crunchy

                and poof—gone. There’s the proof.

Though your grandmother

                           never even had one. You can’t

                                    have just one. You

                                                    inhale them puff—

                                                                          after puff—

                                                                   after puff—

                            You’re a chain smoker. Tongue

                    coated & coaxed

but not saturated or satiated.

                         It’s like pure flavor,

                                   but sadder. Each pink ping

                                                      in your pinball-mouth

                                                                   expertly played

                               by the makers who have studied you,

                                        the human animal, and culled

                    from the rind

          your Eve in the shape

                           of a cheese curl.
                
                                            Girl,

                          come curl in the dim light of the TV.

                      Veg out on the verge of no urge

              of anything.

      Long ago we beached ourselves,

                                  climbed up the trees then

                                          down the trees,

           	            	            knuckled across the dirt

                           & grasses & thorns & Berber carpet.

          	                             Now is the age of sitting,

                                   so sit.

           And I must say,

                       crouched on the couch like that,

         	                you resemble no animal.

        	        	        	Smug in your Snuggie and snug

                                                                 in your sloth, you look

          	                              nothing like a sloth.

           And you are not an anteater,

                                   an anteater eats ants

         	         	         	                 without fear

         	         	         	of diabetes. Though breathing,

          one could say, resembles a chronic disease. 

                                                                                What’s real

                           cheese and what is cheese product?

                              It’s difficult to say

              but being alive today

           	           	         is real-

           	                                 real-

                                                       really

                                        like a book you can’t put down, a stone

           	        that plummets from a great height. Life’s

           	       a “page-turner” alright.

        	   But don’t worry

          	           	          if you miss the finale

                                                of your favorite show, you can

                                                      catch it on queue. Make room

                                     for me and I’ll binge on this,

                                                     the final season with you.

"Bliss Point or What Can Best Be Achieved by Cheese," by Benjamin Garcia. Used by permission of the poet.