Old Man With Cracker

In a booth in a corner of a diner beside a woman
with smooth skin, an old man sat with a cracker
in one hand and a knife tipped with butter in the
other and he buttered that cracker from north to
south and east to west and all points in between,
and though he seemed to listen to the woman
while she talked and pushed things around on her
plate, it was clear he was preoccupied as he worked
the butter into every dimple, enveloping each grain
of salt in a creamy coat ‘til the cracker nearly groaned
with desire for consummation, methodically moving
ever-outward ‘til he reached the edge and stopped,
his thoughts drifting perhaps to a time when sailors
lived with the fear of sailing over the brink to where
ships plied the bounding main of sky and nothing more,
and what sort of shout would the mariners give to signal
the need to come about, as though ‘man overboard’ could
be expanded to include an entire vessel gone too far,
but then, half-smiling, he considered that if the cracker
was the earth and the earth wasn’t flat after all,
he was going to need a lot more butter.

 

 

 

About the Poet:
Dana Hughes is a wife, mother of three grown children, keeper of many pets, a poet, quilter, knitter, and keen observer of myriad aspects of life. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.  You can find her blog at http://dlshughes.wordpress.com/

 

 

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