Vox Populi
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Jim Minick: To Spoon
To spoon is not to fork—
that’s what we do to steaks
and roads and manure.
To fork is to pierce, penetrate, puncture.
To fork is to split and branch,
to pay up and cough out,
but also to tune.
We forklift crates. We pitchfork hay.
The devil never carries a spoon.
Can you bang forks and get a song?
To spoon is not to knife—
that’s what we do too often
to bodies and silence.
To knife is to slice,
to stab and wound,
to skin, filet, and butcher.
To knife is to dam
water that once
spooned the land.
Can you play knives without getting hurt?
Yet the tool is innocent:
a fork feeds or gigs;
a spoon ladles soup or cooks H—
and a knife? To scalp
and to scalpel
both require a sharp blade.
Listen to the drumming of the spoons.
To spoon is to slip into sleep
and the same soft, slow breath,
to listen to the rain
with one ear.
Copyright 2024 Jim Minick. From The Intimacy of Spoons by Jim Minick (Madville, 2024).
Jim Minick is the author or editor of eight books including the novel Fire is your Water.
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What fun, and what a wonderful, peaceful ending. I enjoyed this mightily.
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Love it all, but the end landed in my chest.
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Yeah, me too, Barb.
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Wonderful. I just read it three times. Spooning works best without snoring. Forking too. A snore is a sort of knife, so the metaphor breaks down there. I think this intricate poem just inspired more poetry. Always a risk when you share. You never know what’s on your reader’s mind.
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Thanks, James. Spooning, not forking, and definitely no knifing.
M.
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Fun & witty & original!
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Love the metaphor. Fine poem.
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