Ode to the Cheese Dust

A Poem by Dan Breen

I love Doritos.

It is a truly delicate time of day.
The daily bread has been broken;
supper has passed, and yet
the temptress Sleep has yet to set down
delicately on our laps
to weigh on our eyelids and
bid us retire until morning.
An hour such as this
drives us to wander aimlessly
through the rooms of the house
until we find a chair welcoming enough
to sit on.
We recline cautiously,
we search for evening peace
in the depths of the cushions.
The throes of the throw pillows
and all the comfort of day’s end
draw out of us a heavy sigh…
But what is that?
Coupled with our relieved exhaust
is a lower tremor.
Can it be? It is Hunger,
begging through grumbles of the gut
for us to send him packing
with snacks and scraps.
This Hunger, he is most unwelcome at such an hour!
He roars in the stomach once more, louder…
A proper declaration of war!
We take up arms of silverware and descend upon the pantry.
Stale cookies!
Old cereal!
Rice cakes!
These will never do; the battle is lost already.
But what is that?
Do our eyes deceive us,
or do we see the orange-red
bag of pure passion?
The bravest among us reaches for it,
and when hand grips bag,
the perfect harmony of
crinkling bag and crushed chip
lets us all know that the grocery gods
are smiling upon us this evening.
He, the retriever, holds the bag,
our junk food savior,
to the heavens.
O, savory salvation!
O, our nacho-cheesy hero!
O, Doritos!

Each bite of you, Doritos, is a delicious communion.
We are cleansed of the demon Hunger
with every handful of sacred snackage.
Even when we are, at long last, satiated,
your charity persists.
Your cheesy dust, your residual blessing,
rests on our fingers and mouths so that we may
savor it later and know again the boundlessness
of your calorie-laden love.
But now, with bellies filled with you, heavenly Doritos,
we fall happily into a slumber, to dream
of this relentless hour, when we may
once again indulge in your cheesy glory.