Bliss Point or What Can Best Be Achieved by Cheese
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 in on queue. Make room 
                                      for me and I’ll binge on this, 
                                                            the final season with you. 
Copyright © 2020 by Benjamin Garcia. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 27, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.
