The Chocolate

In the following pages, I propose to articulate
a comprehensive erotics of chocolate.
Other scholars have gone some way to illuminate
aspects of the matter; Buscott and Strumpf
on commodification and fetishisation,
and Yoshimura on jouissance
have been particularly helpful;
but the complicity of the chocolate itself,
its secret desire to yield both form and essence
to the darkness and blood-heat of the mouth,
entering and becoming one
with the eater, has not until this moment
been sufficiently taken into account.
Naturally, I expect my argument
to meet certain objections,
and I shall confront these in my opening chapters.
But first, why don’t you close your eyes,
part your lips, and let me pop a square
that’s already starting to melt between my fingers,
on to your moist and acquiescent tongue?

from The Curiosities, unpublished poems, © Christopher Reid 2013, used by permission of the author.

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