The Ghosts of Hot Chocolate

The typhoon came and left my childhood home

Taking the power with it.

Our neighbors and my family sat huddled at a table, 

Bathed in the smoky vapors and light from a kerosene lantern,

With the smell of temples, 

Like mosquito coils from Japan,

Fending off an aerial attack of marauding insects.

We shared a ghost story,

The Spanish Lady haunts the old limestone Fort Soledad to the south.

She served her jilting lover the drink of kings

Chocolate — the luxury cargoes on Spanish galleons

Plying gold and spice from Manila to Acapulco,

Guam’s connection to the Spanish empire.

Chocolate, warning, and revenge for broken hearts.

In Hong Kong, I remember steaming steel pitchers,

Fighting off bone chills in late February.

The scent of Milo or Ovaltine, 

Escaping from the cups as we blew on them,

Protecting young mouths from scalds,

Picking at sweet bean buns

Until the mud-like lava cooled enough to drink.

In college, a bag of marshmallows dotted each cup of Nestle Quik 

Just before our last trains in Tokyo.

They were treasures from American care packages.

As the spinning molenillo frothed the milk,

Our neighbors to the south of Mexico City and Guadalajara

Dropped an Ybarra discs of pressed cocoa, cinnamon and almond,

For us to drink.

In the terraced backyards in Manila’s finer houses

Manned by squads of servants

The customary merienda began around 3 o’clock.

Pressed cakes of cashew reminiscent of Chinese confections,

Dainty fried treats both sweet and savory

Dusted in powdered sugar or sea salt,

A pitcher of steaming cocoa accompanied the bitter coffee or sweet bottled colas.

Hot Cocoa in Germany was a flashback to mad science.

All exact in measurement and a symphony,

Or a cacophony of metal to metal.

Wire hoops scraping to steel

Then a hush of thermometers. 

All was done to perfection.

Mechanically accurate portions into precisely heated cups

It was chocolate stripped of its human element

But it was cocoa nonetheless, and, these were my memories.