Cutting Apples
Michael Salcman
My father always carried a penknife
to pare his green apples, raising their skins
in perfect spirals. He never drew blood
slicing his bananas for breakfast,
their dark-seeded cores like little faces
dropping into the milk, one more item
in a life of a thousand chores,
one more notch in a life advancing
by millimeters or inches, not seconds or days.
I watched him turn himself as carefully away
from violence as a lathe on a table leg,
cutting each curve and flourish
from the flat face of a block
clamped in his hand. His hand and its thumb
never shied from the blade; he knew
that what you do with any tool gives it its value,
like a life—not too eager or afraid.
photo credit
Michael Salcman
My father always carried a penknife
to pare his green apples, raising their skins
in perfect spirals. He never drew blood
slicing his bananas for breakfast,
their dark-seeded cores like little faces
dropping into the milk, one more item
in a life of a thousand chores,
one more notch in a life advancing
by millimeters or inches, not seconds or days.
I watched him turn himself as carefully away
from violence as a lathe on a table leg,
cutting each curve and flourish
from the flat face of a block
clamped in his hand. His hand and its thumb
never shied from the blade; he knew
that what you do with any tool gives it its value,
like a life—not too eager or afraid.
photo credit
thank you for selecting this poem for your Blog; it was this year's Father's Day poem on Poetry Daily and is included in my new book, THE ENEMY OF GOOD IS BETTER, just out from Orchises (Washington, DC), available on their web site and through Amazon. The poem was originally published in Alaska Quarterly Review. My Father is the subject of a great many of my published poems; he passed away three days before you posted this poem. He did know that it had been selected by Poetry Daily.
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