A Measure
When there had to be a gift
through rubble to tell the children
not to continue on that killer path
and there was a little kindness
it was a little chocolate
And that kiss that might last for now
but is not quite in the blessed ether
and not quite forever as it shines through
the silver and a twisted wrap
that could be a little chocolate
My mother kept the powder
in a Dutch Girl box for cold nights
in the Bronx and she would cook
up the Droste's and stir in whole milk
while we waited for a little chocolate
Now, when I see the folks lined up
for Heavenly Hash or Chocolate Madness
I wonder about the great King Montezuma
whose people brewed for him and celebrated
the magic that comes from a little chocolate
Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, a native New Yorker, taught creative writing, Classical Literature, World Mythology, and founded a Myth/Folklore Studies Center at IUP. She co-edited the prize-winning Life on the Line, and is the author of Going to Bed Whole, Tottering Palaces, The Approximate Message, and In the Fall of a Sparrow, a chapbook commissioned by the Pennsylvania Governor's Institute for the Humanities. She has read her poems in Ireland, Greece, Mexico, Israel, Spain, and Bratislava and has collaborated on 20 pieces with composers and other artists. Her work has been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies. She as received grants from the National Endowment and the Witter Bynner Foundations and was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Award in the Arts at IUP. Most recently, the collaborative piece, "Furoshiki" (languages that speak without words at the center) premiered in Philadelphia. Facilitator of Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop, she was brought to England to be a featured writer on the BBC's "Writer from Abroad" series. In 2012 Tebot Bach published her latest book of poems, I Want to Thank My Eyes.
