I thought it said “Brain-Free”
and for a moment, I was grateful—
someone finally packaged
what I’d been chasing:
something cold,
sweet,
and entirely without thought.
I like the idea: less
full of bread,
less haunted by money.
Free of pain. Free of dairy.
A bar’s price these days,
scary. Even the small
print—”contains almonds”—
cost somebody something.
I stood there squinting,
half-blinded by the freezer’s breath,
trying to decide if the bar
was food or metaphor,
if I was hungry or just bored.
The wrapper says fuel.
I say sure.
The card goes through
then it doesn’t. The night
all tap and shimmer,
then tapped out, dimmer.
How the bar tastes—
coolly chemical.
Coconut. Brain free
but not quite free.
Ben Gunsberg’s poetry appears in Poetry Daily, DIAGRAM, and Mid-American Review, among other magazines. He is the author of the poetry collection Welcome, Dangerous Life (Turning Point Press) and the chapbook Rhapsodies with Portraits (Finishing Line Press). His writing has won awards from the University of Michigan Hopwood Center and the Utah Division of Arts and Museums. He lives in Logan, Utah, and teaches English at Utah State University, where he moonlights as the multi-medium editor for Sugar House Review.
Image: “Not a Lot, Debbie” by Daniel Nester
Pine Hills Review 