EAT

Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Fall 2003 by Petersen, Paulann

Between our two eternities of darkness,

what's to be done? Pick up the table knife

from the table's cloth and peel

an apple's skin from its wet flesh.

Your knife is not made for such work.

Its blade, not sharp to begin with,

is clumsy from all the butter it's spread,

the forcing of meat from bone.

And yet. With practice -

not even art, but simple-minded rote -

skin can be parted from its body

in one spiral of derring-do.

Given light, the slap of air,

flesh will yellow, rust,

scurry to brown.

Grow its own darkness.

PAULANN PETERSEN

Paulann Petersen's work has appeared in Poetry, The New Republic, Prairie Schooner, Willow Springs, and the Internet's Poetry Daily. A collection of her poems, The Wild Awake, was published by Confluence Press in September 2002. A volume of her poems about Turkey, Blood-Silk, is forthcoming from Quiet Lion Press. She serves on the board of Friends of William Stafford, organizing the January Stafford Birthday Events.