Smoked Gouda Man!

I just consumed six thin pale pieces –
they told me all. Smoked Gouda
makes my thesis: it’s the correlating taste

of fall. Back in the upper palate blooms
its dusk – autumnal salty musk – reproved
by a consistency the color, just beyond

its dark brown rind, of reassuring sun:
homogenously yellowish dun cream which
calms the hard cheese through its tantalizing

smoke – and gives it its regime: to nudge
us gently out of summer into poignancy:
as warm and friendly as a mild joke

but with a tinge. Something like a destiny
impinges. I close my eyes and it personifies
into Smoked Gouda Man! – there surely

cannot be as good a man. He sits there
something like a Christ, serving up
himself in every gently potent slice.

.