Dishing on spoons

As a kid, I hated flimsy spoons

whose necks would pose like Gumby

every which way when dishing

too-hard ice cream. Like

Scarlet O’Hara, I vowed never

to live with bendy spoons,

pressed sawdust, or ice milk.

Heavier spoons filled my fantasies

when dreaming of leaving home

so that come what may

I’d never be reminded

of thousands of silent hours

at table waiting to be allowed

to speak or of scooping unbending

milk that pretended to be cream.

My dorm mates played a kind of

musical chairs but with spoons.

I, a wispy poet, always came up short,

hating the rawness that amused others.

In time, whether each glass filled

half empty or half full grew moot.

The rub was if each cup or scoop

got its due since they dropped into bins

from wretched empty to obscenely full.

Napolean’s generals dined with

spoons of gold. HE used

aluminum melted from meteors.

Ignorant that every metal and

every element congeals from

exploded stars or that even bricks,

if coaxed, could cough up his spoons.