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Column 831

A Small Moment

02.21.2021

I sus­pect that one thing some peo­ple have against read­ing poems is that they are so often so seri­ous, so devoid of joy, as if we poets spend all our time brood­ing about muta­bil­i­ty and death and nev­er hav­ing any fun. Here Cor­nelius Eady, who lives and teach­es in Indi­ana, offers us a poem of pure pleasure.


Editor’s Note: This col­umn (197) is a reprint from the Amer­i­can Life in Poet­ry archive as we bid farewell to Ted Koos­er, and work to final­ize the new web­site and forth­com­ing columns curat­ed by Kwame Dawes.

A Small Moment

I walk into the bakery next door   
To my apartment. They are about   
To pull some sort of toast with cheese   
From the oven.   When I ask:   
What’s that smell? I am being   
A poet, I am asking   

What everyone else in the shop   
Wanted to ask, but somehow couldn’t;   
I am speaking on behalf of two other   
Customers who wanted to buy the   
Name of it.   I ask the woman   
Behind the counter for a percentage   
Of her sale. Am I flirting?   
Am I happy because the days   
Are longer?   Here’s what   

She does: She takes her time   
Choosing the slices.   “I am picking   
Out the good ones,” she tells me.   It’s   
April 14th. Spring, with five to ten   
Degrees to go.   Some days, I feel my duty;   
Some days, I love my work.

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 1997 by Cornelius Eady, from Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems (Putnam, 2008). Reprinted by permission of Cornelius Eady. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.