Our Daily Bread

While I’m whisking the eggs
you hand me your brush.
I bounce the knife off the cutting board,
missing the onions half the time
dicing them small enough
for the omelette you like,
brie and ginger, you tell me
I take things for granted.

I mimic the way you keep the knifepoint still
then lever the blade in fast arcs,
but experience works against me.
I know best, the desperate hacking
into tangled line, the torque of wind and sail.
Cuts requiring strength, not control.

Show me again, I ask.
Not now, you say, picking up the brush.

You turn and lift that hair
off your waist, over the shoulder of the chair.
When you taught me how to stroke
from the scalp to the ends, how to
untangle the knots from underneath,
I was happy to be like the other men
who had stood over you, hypnotized
by this simple act of grooming.

I keep peeling garlic, shaving ginger
into thin translucent discs,
watching the unexpected April snow
fall like webs of silence.

Let’s wash as we go, I say.
Not today, you answer.

You’ve stopped insisting
I actually eat this awful combination with you.
But if you asked again, straight-out,
I’d make the gesture.

I scan the harbor for the ferry,
crushing white peppercorns by hand.
Their sharpness floods my nose, itching
like whispers between my eyes.
Rolling the broadside of the knife
over gritty seeds, half pop-out,
twisting the blade,
scoring lines on my fingers.

For warriors, you say,
each scar is a gift,
a coup taken in battle.

Why did you teach me
how to do these things
you love?