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Poetry · Chiron Review
Ruth Moon Kempher

The Mashed Potato Threats (Letter No. 13) to Adam

Ruth Moon Kempher
I am going to I am going to make mounds and heaps and slurps and dips of warm potato, smashed with globs of limpid butter flaccid cream I am going to whip them up in mountains, in tidal waves, whole EARTHS, indeed! (with sprinkles of salt and pepper, effete) O the blessed potato, gift of the squaw that saved the Irish, the English the whole bloody fleet lascivious potatoes, with possibly here and there a dab of cheese I will mash them, crush them, squeeze POTATOES in my fingers an ORGY of potatoes smear them, mush them, with a fork, with a spoon I don't care Glorious potatoes I am going to eat and eat and eat and EAT. They will caress my teeth. They will fondle my tongue slide to my stomach groaning, still warm elixirs of potato and cream they will languish with me, concupiscent marvelous, moist with cream Earth's fairest fruit, the vegetable supreme – MASHED POTATOES bowls and ships and volcanoes of MASHED POTATOES and you will come to me finally, after all these weeks and for once in my life I will say "no" to you. O yes. "No," to you. "Go. I am replete, I am filled, satiate, I have fed my fill on the friendly potato." And you will look at me with your inventory eyes Dear Love – you will know.
From the pages of Chiron Review. © Ruth Moon Kempher; reproduced with permission. · All poems · Poetry page

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