I met him at a party, a posh one, in one of those
grand Belgravian buildings big enough to house
a small South American republic. I don’t know
what I did to catch his attention but, that night,
he really spoiled me.

As for the despoiling, well, that came later.

It didn’t take much, to be honest. A hazelnut covered
in chocolate inside a frilly wrapper was all it needed.
These aureate orbs of oral splendour were piled up
into pyramids on platters and carried around the room
by solemn-faced butlers. I, too, was transported.

He had me.

I took to following him around at other functions,
hoping for repeated delights. A meeting with a Bulgarian
trade delegation, a seminar on higher education.
Treaties, charters, handshakes, forced smiles, and me,
a ’49-er panickedly panning the Mokelumne River
clawing at the soil in search of golden rocks.
Occasionally, the Ambassador would reach into his pocket
and toss one my way, eyeing me with comic cruelty.

Of course, I lost my job eventually, and friends and family;
the inevitable collateral damage. And it’s late here,
as I wait for him to emerge outside the embassy gate
for that moment of rapprochement and, who knows,
another ferrero rocherment.