M&Ms, An Ode
A Wife Writes a Confessional Poem
Cecil Morris
M&Ms, An Ode
I don’t know what delights AI might bring
or if a future robot will one day
peel me a grape and place it in my lips
or proffer some other robotic glee,
but I doubt any Tomorrowland candy
invention sold at the Galactic Grill
will surpass the absolute perfection
of M&Ms with their chocolate centers
and outer, hardened, candy-coated shells
in candy-colors—yellow, red, and green.
Nothing beats their tiny blast of heaven
between my teeth, the crunch that’s orgasmic
and chocolate, dream of paradise at hand
(or tongue, if I can muster the patience
to let it slowly, decadently, melt).
I suspect that these were the manna God
supplied the Israelites, the miracle
that sustained them in the wilderness years,
the food that is salvation for body
and soul, and that will not melt in our hands.
A Wife Writes a Confessional Poem
“I wanted to be that free
inside the body, the doors of pleasure
opening, one after the next, an arpeggio
climbing the ladder of sky . . . .
. . . the body’s bright wailing against its limits.”
—Danusha Lameris (“Bonfire Opera”)
When I wake up in another strange room
I think of Little Blackie, the Mattie’s horse
in True Grit, the horse Rooster rode to death
to save Mattie, its great heart exploding
with the effort, its running legs buckling.
That’s the end I want for myself, mid-stride,
full gallop, no regrets, no looking back.
If video shows up online, I know
what I will see, my face flushed, impassive
and slack, a marathoner’s at 15
or 20 mile mark, my eyes closed, my hair
in disarray, unkempt—I smile to hear
those tenth grade vocab words still in my head
with all the ignored warnings, boundaries,
and shall nots. There will be my narrow back
and the pale disappointments of my breasts
once they’re loosed from the wonder bra’s support.
Lots of male backs, too, and lots of male hands
holding me, gripping me, possessing me,
and telling me that I am the source of all
desire, to which I and my body say
yes and yes again and always yes.
And sound, too, the groans and gasps and grunts,
the crude exhortations, throbbing music—
all of me, for me, by me, another bit
of learning locked in me forever. Yes,
I know, I know, the risk I take when I
go wild, the danger courted, invited,
and welcomed—to be like Blackie, to go,
heart pounding, muscles surging to the end
Cecil Morris is a retired high school English teacher, sometime photographer, and casual walker. His first collection of poems, At Work in the Garden of Possibilities, came out from Main Street Rag in 2025. His second collection, Daughter Lost and Found and Lost, will come out from Kelsay Books in 2027. He has poems in The 2River View, Common Ground Review, Rust + Moth, Talking River Review, and elsewhere. He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool Oregon coast and the hot Central Valley of California.