Last night, my child found
the peeler/corer/slicer
and clamped it to the kitchen table
upside down. Peering under, our guests
couldn’t conceive the taper/circle/spring
but Look, friend: if you consider
the three spikes holding the apple in place,
and the handle that turns the screw
and presses every inch evenly into the blade,
then Time is circular and predictable;
it will skin and gut you over & over &
If my dad died when I was eight, as I did a neighbor’s chores
the fire engine would turn right
past me, siren grinding down to growl.
I’d drop the rake and run.
And when the paramedics’ stretcher
disappeared into the deck of the ambulance,
I would ghost through the walls of third
grade into another future. See how all
our certainty is no different from water
and dry ice under pressure in a test tube?
All ready to rise up as snow
when it shatters in a child’s hand?
c3crew is a school teacher, parent and mini-clover enthusiast. c3’s poetry has recently appeared in The Cincinnati Review, The Sugarhouse Review, The Briar Cliff Review, and Spillway. c3 can be found on playground duty pretty much any hour of the day. www.c3crew.com
