Elvis loved his peanut butter.
Gladys, who loved him the most,
as all good mothers love their children,
would feed him grilled Hawaiian bread
sandwich after sandwich of peanut butter
with chopped caramelized bananas,
or gently mashed fork bananas,
sometimes with bacon, sometimes without.
He dreamed of peanut butter and
Gladys would feed those dreams
with Fool’s Gold loaves made each of
one pound peanut butter, jelly and bacon
lovingly folded, like Graceland,
into two foot slices of Italian bread,
cut by Gladys into pyramids
so the crusty part would never
hurt her Little King’s mouth.
He would go to bed with peanut butter
on his breath, on the roof of his mouth,
his tongue pressed to his palate so
that the peanut butter would never dissolve.
He would greet the dawn with
peanut butter morning breath,
peanut butter on his lips and
peanut butter cloud swirls on his cheeks,
peanut butter like ant trails on
his satin pillow cases and King size sheets.
Gladys would be in the kitchen
plopping a tablespoon of buttery
peanut butter into a skillet
before adding two eggs and Canadian bacon.
The peanut butter shaving cream Elvis used
would still be on his neck and Gladys
would kiss it off in vampire pecks
that still made him squirm.
She would curl his cow lick
in place, as she kissed his forehead
smelling the scent of the peanut butter
pomade that gelled his beautiful pompadour.
.
And when she died, and he died,
it was those peanut butter kisses
he missed the most in his world.
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