Poem: Aise de Mayon

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/magazine/poem-aise-de-mayon.html

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At first, Sharon Olds’s poem seems to be about a simple condiment. But as the writing wends and winds like memory, we soon see that it is an elegy for a young beloved and for young love. Selected by Victoria Chang —

By Sharon Olds

I didn’t know that mayonnaise was invented in Mayon, France — France as inParis, France! I had no idear it came from Mayon, I had learned to sayidear in the New England boarding school our mother sent us to — those girls sopolite, so smart. Unlike and likeGary Soto, I had thought by god I wasdone for — but your tongue knows what it likes,egg yolk, and white, beaten to a pulp while the golden corn oil wasdripped in, drop by drop, till even a girl from Joke, California had achance with a beautiful sweet boy whose grandfather was a famous upper-classthief. Doesn’t a young woman,when a sweet young man has his hands on her,know his character, when he says,Not till we’re married. Who ever imaginedhe would fall asleep at the wheel, EasterMorning. None of the other freshmenwere hurt, and this golden boy I loved forhow many weeks was killed. He had taken me toHamburger Heaven, on what I believe was ourfirst, and our engagement, date —who had ever said, “Untilwe’re married,” with his hand on my breast. He thought I was so risqué, to put Hellman’s and butter on my heaven hamburger, I think he hadnot dated anyoneoutside the first few %, before, and he wasready, and I tasted a sweetness, a non-egotist goodness that from then on I woulddesire so much I would see it when it wasn’t even there.

Victoria Chang is a poet whose latest book of poems is “The Trees Witness Everything” (Copper Canyon Press,2022). Her fifth book of poems, “Obit” (2020), was named a New York Times Notable Book and a Time Must-Read. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches in Antioch University’s M.F.A. program. Sharon Olds lives in New York City. She isolated upstate during the first years of the pandemic, commuting or videoconferencing in to workshops at N.Y.U., where she helped found several community-outreach programs. Her book “Balladz” (Knopf, 2022) was a finalist for the National Book Award.