Coq Au Vin
By, Afua Serwah Osei-Bonsu
The pictures and cities of a poet’s reading
The crumbs that dusted the wedding plate
The plate below, a demure and classical bridal blue
Blue as a robin’s egg, and a lover’s eyes
Chef will you place robin’s eggs such as these in the garden?
Traces and pools of honey on the plates
She wondered what a reading was of the house
The dishes she said
Should lift burden and wash themselves
And maintain their memories
Can you man love me?
Will you man love me?
They were lined up
Divine my body
Linked trunks as circling big top elephants
And an old Wizards premiere business
Had been magical dilating and titillating anal lubricants
Make my crumbs
A sky, and a story
And a wet sweetness
Make my man love me
He will need the well
And the virgin’s tears
And a truth elixir
In his soul
To be a poet
He will surely
Need a bosom
And its milk
He told me rape
Was extreme passion
A thief’s love
An overpowering salty love
An ocean
And sharks circling at the bottom
O Horizon
That a God had saved these men, all men
Like honey glazed jamon from a Jew
For himself
He programmed the men for infidelity and circulation
He programmed the women to be his
And got into various bodies to please them
The Coq au Vin’s morning madera
A cock o doodle doo
Hissing and strutting
The apple blossom discovered
For a lamb shank
When an apple is sliced at its cinturon
A bundt cake
Strawberry or cinnamon
It was in fact a poet’s breakfast
Before Christmas, before Thanksgiving
Before Halloween
In the season of holidays
A marriage of language and culinary
The Chef came to her a Chinoise, a French and an English
From body to body, from soul to soul
From skill to skill
From fork to mouth to kiss her
“That is the law!” he screamed