Kernels and Cream
Had he asked for it as spare change or a dime please
I might have narrowed my eyes, studied my pace,
Hollowed myself forward with the other drugstore shoppers
Straightening, quickening, weaving momentum
Into husks - dry cells and filament
To carry us through this last trial of the day
Tugging at our sleeves, threatening
To peel us beholden.
It wasn't the corn that surprised me
But what he said five steps later to my back:
whole kernel- not the creamed kind
Clarification come forward with presence
Like the expulsion of his breath - or my own,
Murmuring the phrase like a mantra as I shopped:
whole kernel- not creamed
whole kernel- not creamed
In my mind, pairing the statement with the beggar,
Startling at the pairing, puzzling at the startling,
Selecting the item finally-pulling it off the shelf
With a reverence rarely practiced upon canned food.
Not the creamed kind I said,
Handing the bag to the man on the corner,
The whole kernel man
Whose preference had surprised me
As though choice were a privilege-
A seventy cent can to be afforded
In a season of harvest.
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Wendi Robbins lives in the Bay Area of
California and is currently a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, studying the
intersection between spirituality and psychotherapy. In 1994 she received the Academy of
American Poets Prize at the University of California, Berkeley.
- Beauty for Ashes Poetry Review ©1996-2000
- ©A Creative Ash Publication 2000
- Isaiah 61:1-3
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