Another Poem

Because isn't that what you want on a Friday afternoon, when the world is nearing spring? When I was a senior in college, I did a capstone project around the theme of object poems (don't ask me why that, I'm just sitting here trying to remember, and I can't for the life of me). I did a whole series on the theme of wooden spoons. I do have a strange sort of fascination with them. This poem is really odd. I really had forgotten all about it till I was going through my stuff. But I love the progression of it. You'll see...(oh, it's a prose poem. Don't be thrown off by the lack of line breaks.)

a lifetime in spoons

Should I tell you how from my infancy I have wanted a wooden spoon, how I tossed aside rattles and binkies in inarticulate rage, waiting for someone to recognize what I really needed?

In toddlerhood, my first steps were goaded on by the promised prize of a wooden spoon, but when I finally crossed the room, they had quick-switched it out for a baby doll, as if I would never know I had been cheated.

I have been a difficult adolescent, engaged in shouting matches with my mother about whether I could wear my dangly spoon earrings to church, whether my first boyfriend could bring me a box of spoons for our date, each hardwood nestled in its little paper cup. Madly criticizing her drawer full of other spoons, stainless steel, cheap nylon and sad plastic; melting in the pot, turning yellow and cracking, ruined by age until I passionately wept at the sight.

Someday, though, I will grow old enough to acquire a house and a fence and a kitchen of my own, to get all I’ve ever wanted. Then I will fill that kitchen as I please, stacking heavy ceramic bowls and lighting archaic candles in the evening, hanging the walls with spoon prints, and mounting my favorites on plaques like hunting trophies. When my parents finally come to dinner, squawking about my lack of taste, I will serve them soup, forego the silver, and set the table with wooden spoons.