From the Pentagon

By Jehanne Dubrow
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.

Copyright Credit: 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.
Source: 2018