Kersten Christianson
Delectable
“I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.” -Pablo Neruda
I pondered
this poem
while pillaging
the second to last piece
of my daughter’s birthday
cake: chocolate with cream
cheese frosting.
If Pablo Neruda,
I’d write this slice
a love poem; to the dark
sweet cacao seeds blazed
by vanilla, the sunset gold
of a buttercream sea lapping
against a distant shore
while I balance
both fork and pen
among fingers of my
right hand, alternating
dive and plunder with
thought and word.
*Neruda, Pablo. “XVII. I Don't Love You as If You Were a Rose.” The Essential Neruda: Select Poems, translated by Mark Eisner, City Lights, 2004, pp. 142–143.
Kersten Christianson is a raven-watching, moon-gazing, high school-English teaching Alaskan. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Something Yet to Be Named and What Caught Raven’s Eye. Kersten also serves as the poetry editor of the quarterly journal Alaska Women Speak. When not teaching, she can be found somewhere in the Yukon.
Delectable
“I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.” -Pablo Neruda
I pondered
this poem
while pillaging
the second to last piece
of my daughter’s birthday
cake: chocolate with cream
cheese frosting.
If Pablo Neruda,
I’d write this slice
a love poem; to the dark
sweet cacao seeds blazed
by vanilla, the sunset gold
of a buttercream sea lapping
against a distant shore
while I balance
both fork and pen
among fingers of my
right hand, alternating
dive and plunder with
thought and word.
*Neruda, Pablo. “XVII. I Don't Love You as If You Were a Rose.” The Essential Neruda: Select Poems, translated by Mark Eisner, City Lights, 2004, pp. 142–143.
Kersten Christianson is a raven-watching, moon-gazing, high school-English teaching Alaskan. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Something Yet to Be Named and What Caught Raven’s Eye. Kersten also serves as the poetry editor of the quarterly journal Alaska Women Speak. When not teaching, she can be found somewhere in the Yukon.