Chocolate Lips
Author: Bill Roberts
You don’t fool me with your pouty lips,
painted so carelessly with sticky chocolate
from a candy bar or ice cream on a stick.
You want me and everyone passing by
to notice you. I do and chuckle at
the sensation you’ve made of your sweet face.
Soon enough, little girl, you’ll grow up and
put on real lipstick – shocking pink or mouth-
watering red, maybe bittersweet brown -
applied with precision, provoking passersby
to notice you and your moist, puckered lips,
ready for a whispered secret, even a kiss.
Then soon enough you’ll advance to an age
where those precious lips will tell quite
another tale, mouth crinkled and again
smeared with chocolate, quivering,
perhaps repeating a long-ago endearment.
May God bless your sweet chocolate lips.
(This poem was published somewhere, sometime, somehow, but who knows where and when?)
The inspiration for this poem is the image of so many kids, girls and boys, who eat chocolate, or any sweet for that matter, with gusto, carefree of the aftermath of their indulgence. Life should be carefree for the young. Well, to an extent. Can’t believe the incredible freedom I enjoyed growing up in Georgetown, D.C., during the Second World War. Wouldn’t doubt that my face was always smudged with some sort of candy remnant, though our choices were far fewer. How far we’ve come, how little we’ve changed. So be it.
