Cheese surprise
Walking the grid east of the abbey turns out
to be easier than you think, the four legs
of the square more like a kilometre long
than a mile, probably less, the wind
at your back on the first leg and not too bad
on the second, all along your eyes glued
to the moon in the east like the glowing end
of a cigarette burning its way through
a gauze sky, full moon with its chest stuck
out, stuffed shirt moon, a moon full
of itself, full of it, the big pizzapie moon
and all of a sudden you’re hungry just as you
turn the corner, the moon on your shoulder
now and you meet real resistance, a fine
razoring of the skin on your cheeks
and nose, and you hunch into the fur collar
of your parka, your eyes down now where
your boots are creating fresh prints in snow
swept clean and smooth as sugar icing on a cake
your grandmother might have made, food again
and now you’re really hungry, it makes you think
of the cheese the moon over your shoulder is
made of, and you will you yourself upward,
through the hazy mist, way above the frozen fields,
high above the abbey belltower through hoarfrost air,
through trembling cloud and then into black, solemn
space, the stars so close you really can almost touch
them, chocolate chip cookie stars, lemon slice stars,
and then on to the moon, taking a bite, making a face,
your nose wrinkling, not blue cheese at all
as you’d expected
but limburger.
~ Dave Margoshes
Dave Margoshes is a fiction writer and poet who lives in Regina. His poetry and stories are widely published in Canadian literary magazines. His most recent book of poetry is Purity of Absence. A story collection, Bix’s Trumpet and Other Stories, won Book of the Year at the 2007 Saskatchewan Book Awards.
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