Bon Iver Erotica is not really a joke on Bon Iver, but on all the women for whom meeting a successful, wandering cheese monger at a farmers market is some sort of fantasy.
The story of our meeting is simple and sweet, and we feel that it is private to us and our future children, when they’re ready. So sometimes, as we lie in the hammock with the grass tickling our feet, Bon Iver likes to embellish.
In one version, he is a cheese boy whose pungent triple-crèmes are the envy of every goat farmer. He brings his wooden pallets to the market each weekend and sells out before noon, which gives him time to pack his stall at a leisurely pace, wander the corridor in his straw hat and flopping sandals, and have his pick of lunches at the sandwich stand while the other dairy stalls are still hustling. He always makes his way to the north end where the strawberry girl works. He sits on a box while she weighs baskets of her candylike berries: tiny and perfectly red, each dressed with a green leaf, as though they’ve been meticulously sketched by a botanist.
She tolerates him, whipping him with her apron when he is impudent and placidly controlling her expression when he finds a way to be sweet. She consistently rejects his invitations to the dance hall - until one day in August, when he brings her bread studded with grains and with a crust so hard it shatters, and a soft little cheese whose rind he has molded into the shape of a strawberry.