Doritos

By Emily Hunt

Emily Hunt lives in Oakland and works in San Francisco. She loves Shark Bites, Reese’s, and Cheezits.

In 1937, Simone Weil experienced
ecstasy in an ugly church.

At 34, she was weak,
hungry, impossibly

bold, dead by 1943.
Weil was really into the word

supernatural. She circles around it.
The ideas she is building

come back to it.
It ends many sentences

containing her
so she gives it a life.

Man’s great affliction
which begins with infancy

and accompanies him
till death, is that looking

and eating are two different
operations. Eternal

beatitude is a state
where to look is to eat.

My chip was invented
after her time.

Man only escapes
from the laws of the world

in lightning flashes.
It is through such instants

that he is capable
of the supernatural.

I’ve watched a cat
eat a Dorito in grass,

have eaten whole bags
by the black sea.

They are plain, thin,
fried, dry

corn until they’re covered
in bright powder.

Salt, cheddar cheese,
maltrodextrin, whey,

monosodium glutamate,
buttermilk solids, romano,

whey protein concentrate,
onion powder, partially

hydrogenated soybean
and cottonseed oil,

corn flour, disodium
phosphate, lactose, natural

and artificial flavor, dextrose,
tomato powder, spices, lactic

acid, Yellow 6, Yellow 5,
Red 40, citric acid, sugar,

garlic powder, sodium,
caseinate, disodium inosinate,

disodium guanylate, nonfat
milk solids, whey protein,

isolate, corn syrup,
but I want more of them.

Contradiction is the point of the pyramid.
Doradito means “little golden thing.”