Kevin Burris

It wasn’t. Not by any stretch
of a chocolate lover’s sweet imagination,
finer than Hershey’s or Nestlé or Fannie May
or even the chocolate in some hazelnut hell
imported from the wrong end of Germany.
We pitched it by the bar and case.
We hustled it for the good cause
of baseball, Boy Scouts, band and bible camp.
We waited on your front porch,
clipboard and order form in our sweating hands,
little salesmen learning to sell
things we did not believe in.

Bio

Kevin Burris lives in southern Illinois. His work has appeared previously in Poetry East, Southern Poetry Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and many other publications. He has published two books of poems: The Happiest Day of My Life (FutureCycle Press, 2016) and Inside the Clock (Pine Row Press, 2023).