Song of Sausage Pig

My Dear Fresh Market:

I forget myself when I am with you. Because you make me forget. It is your goal that our time together pass intimately in the glow of your gentle, ambient lighting. You play to me the strains of perfectly pitched classical music and swirl aloft the fragrances of your bounteous floral and produce offerings, engaging my every sense. You want me to forget......and I am helpless.

My eyes feast on your lavishly laden displays of cheeses and chocolates and breads and sweets. You say to me, "I am too rich, but taste me anyway. I am all good and there is none better." I resist you, but awaiting me as I proceed through your careful design is another display, another row, another line, another tower of your over-priced, exotically packaged goods. I feel myself grow weak smelling the intoxicating scent that is peculiarly yours, yet I do not leave.

I hear the voices of reason calling, "Come away. We can't stay here forever. We must go back." The distant voices of my children, who do not see your allure. They have their organic sodas and their favorite bags of candy, filled from your overflowing, pristine jars, and they are ready. I, however, am still sipping the enchantingly drugged nectar of your richly brewed coffee of the day. Is there a world outside this cocoon in which you have enrobed us? I have forgotten. Stay me with this nectar, for I am weak with love.

As if fearing I will break from your spell, you have lined the recesses of your establishment with cases of quality meats and fine desserts, showcasing in the center, as your ultimate triumph over my will, the sausage pig.

He is altogether lovely, shaped from a firm mass of sausage and herbs, and sporting two scarlet red cherry tomatoes for eyes. His swinish snout is symbolized with two light impressions under his ingenious eyes. I will not leave without seeing him.

He beckons even as I peruse the tables of baked goods and the gleaming cases of creme brulees and fruited tarts. I take with me his picture, as a remembrance of our time together, and to share with my Facebook friends who are, sadly, far from him - in the real, flat world where the lighting is harsh and the scents are suspect and the tones are loud.

I imagine him in my quiet moments, living amid your perfection. He is your ultimate, seductive hold over me, ensuring my return to you. As if I had a choice. Because as surely as you make me forget all else when I am with you, I remember our every moment when we are apart.

All my love,
Me