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Strolling With Salisubsilious Against Marvin Cohen


ISSUE:  Winter 1999
I was walking down the street
  with Marvin. It wasn’t too cold.
I was carrying a vital stalk of chartreuse-flowered
  gladiola
  and he was going on and on
  about some supposed defect in my humor.
So I stopped a passerby, quite beau,
  and confessed:
  ”I am the goddess of cereal and spring.”
“That’s good,” he said in the gentle manner
  one uses for children who announce that
  they are superman.
There was a power crunch
  amidst the deities. We were grabbing for titles
  like shoppers at Macy’s.
Spring was an obvious choice
  but cereal was a sleeper.
I knew it, had seen it clearly in those
  sometime muddy waters.
C.E.O. s eat Corn Flakes in the privacy of their home.
  Cheerios, Rice Crispies, Puffed Rice
  Shredded Wheat, Wheaties not so often
  as you might think,
  and some, the dour ones, do Bran Flakes
  or sometimes the pathetic types like
  poor aging Jack Lalanne do bran
  trying to stay young and hard.
It’s a roots thing, their rosebud.
Cereal makes them feel home safe
  first thing in the morning.
I ceded oatmeal to the goddess of horses
  and she took Cream of Wheat also
  just to add to the confusion.
As I said we were grabbing.
Imagine the power I have
  controlling those breakfast foods
  which remind them of their baseball caps,
  reminding them of what they really wanted
  when they could really want.
“And,” said Marvin, “sometimes you are imperious.”
“I,” I said, “am the goddess of cereal and spring.”

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