The science of deliciousness reveals a fifth taste –

added to sweet, salty, sour, and bitter –

that thing that might be called fat,

but is closer to protein with the water squeezed out –

think potato chips or parmesan cheese –

condensation, and the smell –

let’s instead say aroma, with its soft three sliding syllables --

all balance and pleasure in the mouth when said aloud like umami

and even, that quirky osmozome, from the French,

its Os piggy-backing off the Ms

and don’t you just want to wrap your lips

around something wonderful?

 

Is satiety what we all want in the end?

Or will you punish me now for willfulness

and withholding, your salt in one hand,

a magician juggling four balls of flavor,

none sufficient alone, and you thinking,

what I really need is abstinence, a little

more time alone with my hungers, and

then I’ll be ready to tell what I know.

 

 

Syntactic foam, marrow-like and hollow,

slowly release their drugs or flavors

depending upon the application,

and of course there are non human uses,

say, with glass – think glass in water form,

heated as it’s sprayed – a million spheres

resilient and fragile, glittery, miraculous

like zest alarming the palate, or smoke,

as from bacon or chilies,

folding over the tongue,

the breathlessness of heat

vaporizing in the nose

from horseradish and vinegar,

 

or the easing of anxiety

to a lower frequency from versed,

and then gone,

 

the world suddenly all balloon,

all transference,

like new red blood cells in the marrow,

or blood resting in a good roast

removed from the oven just degrees

away from too hot.      No gravy, on a bed

 

of celeriac and mango foam, some greens,

the slices thin, but toothsome, and in your hand,

a dial with which to bring yourself

to a boil, the moments of your life strung

together like colored and riotous balloons.