The Spoon

Some days I think I need nothing
more in life than a spoon.
With a spoon I can eat oatmeal
Or take the medicine doctors prescribe
I can swat a fly sleeping on the sill
or pound the table to get attention.
I can point accusingly at God
or stab the empty air repeatedly.
Looking into the spoon’s mirror,
I can study my face in its shiny bowl,
or cover one eye to make half the world
disappear. With a spoon
I can dig a tunnel to freedom
spoonful by spoonful of dirt,
or waste life catching moonlight
and flinging it into the blackest night.

Richard Jones – Editor of Poetry East and author of five books of poetry including his new and selected poems in The Blessing (Copper Canyon Press, 2000)