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Column 693

From the Pentagon

Intro by Ted Kooser
07.01.2018

Jehanne Dubrow’s most recent book is Dots & Dash­es, from South­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty Press. Her hus­band is a naval offi­cer and she’s writ­ten some very fine poet­ry about mil­i­tary life. Here’s a poem that plays upon the unlike­ly inter­sec­tion of weapon­ry and choco­late. Jehanne Dubrow lives and teach­es in Texas. 

From the Pentagon

He brings me chocolate from the Pentagon,
dark chocolates shaped like tanks and fighter jets,
milk chocolate tomahawks, a bonbon
like a kirsch grenade, mint chocolate bayonets.
He brings me chocolate ships, a submarine
descending in a chocolate sea, a drone
unmanned and filled with hazelnut praline.
He brings me cocoa powder, like chocolate blown
to bits. Or chocolate squares of pepper heat.
Or if perhaps we've fought, he brings a box
of truffles home, missiles of semisweet
dissolving on the tongue. He brings me Glocks
and chocolate mines, a tiny transport plane,
a bomb that looks delicious in its cellophane.

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2017 by Jehanne Dubrow, "From the Pentagon," from Dots & Dashes, (Southern Illinois University Press, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Jehanne Dubrow and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.