Cheese Ring

a poem by Roger B Rueda

for Arleen

So there it was—
a Cheese Ring, singular,
orange like the afterglow of touch,
resting on its own waxy shrine.

I looked at it the way one looks
at something already mourning
its fate.

Maybe it had been spared—
shyness, maybe.
Or that moment when fullness folds
into guilt.
Maybe someone left it
the way we leave each other:
gently, with excuses,
not knowing we meant to go
all along.

It must have thought,
I'm the lucky one.
Or
I'm the least loved.
It must have sat there,
watching the lizard inch closer,
the way desire does—
uninvited, legged, slow.

The waiter came.
The world shifted.
That thin orbit of snack
almost laughed,
then trembled—
a breath away from being
another forgettable end.

But I—
I took it.
Not out of pity.
Not even hunger.
I wanted to know
what survival tastes like.

So I bit—
and it broke like a small grief
against my tongue.

.