I find myself scratching out a poem when I’m humbled by a situation I can’t comprehend or overcome by extreme emotion that will not be harnessed. While I claim no genius at the form, I sense that all of us are poets when we are young and we lose access to the gift as we age. Barbara Crooker is a wise teacher and gifted poet. She has a knack for helping us notice the ordinary and apprehending its majesty. 

The Foolproof Sesame Cookie Litmus Test

On Mulberry Street
I found the treasure:
the golden S,
piles of them
a full cart of them
a man and a boy protecting them.

A half-pound is where we started,
the boy and me,
Then why not a few more?
     there are people I will need to share
     these cookies with,
     people demanding their own chew.
A pound is where we left off.

For the price of a Domino’s pizza
I owned 15 cookies:
15 cookies shaped like a primitive squiggle
     like an amoeba risking everything to become a paramecium
15 cookies of toasted amber grain,
     sunk in a paper bag, not boxed and tied like a stuffed shirt
15 cookies awaiting my orders
     very patient, not at all like the natives of Mulberry Street.

Let me count the ways in which
a sesame cookie changes your life:
It is sweet but not sugary
crisp yet not crunchy
dry and, oh, crumbly
making it the perfect partner
to hot spiced tea.

Give one to a
paramour-in-waiting
and you will discover
whether he is
alkali or acid.

You know volumes about people
when they face a cookie this clever:
I don’t like sesame
I don’t like things that look like squiggles
I gave it up for lent
No carbohydrates, please.

The old me would have insisted:
Take it. Have it later. Enjoy.
The new me:
If you’re not going to eat it, give it back.

I like the new me better.

Sesame cookies
are my litmus test:
I’m incapable of loving anyone
who can’t embrace their crumble,
their desiccated crumbs melting
on an anxious tongue,
butter
salt
amber
grain;
If the toasted seed of princes and queens
lodges between your bicuspids
it is not annoying,
it is expected.
It is not a glitch,
it is a second chance.
One seed left behind to savor,
tongue to gum to cheek.

9.11.16

Everything’s dialed down a notch
at today’s farmer’s market;
The babies suck their pacifiers,
The mothers happy enough with
the last of the tomatoes,
A father teaches a son how
to tie a shoe.
“Never forget” it says on
the fishmonger’s blackboard
above the price of squid.
It is impossible to gather it all
– all that we have forgotten –
in autumn’s bushel.
In the aftermath
we were relieved to see
the homeless man of our ‘hood in a familiar doorway,
his life still rigged together with string, plastic bags and a soiled Tufts sweatshirt.
Remember when we let a stranger take our subway seat,
rejoicing?
     Amen to the man with the fleshy nose seeded
     with black pits like the crust of a good rye,
     Amen to the tattooed girl sucking an orange lollipop,
     Amen to the nurse with a butt the size of Texas –
     – Please take two seats – we forgive you your Twinkies.
We held doors open, waited in line without seething,
thanked the cashier.
Please, we said. After you.
In our pockets,
– we double-checked –
we clutched
the identical fortune cookie:
You will live longer than most.