The Butter Principle
Life is like cold, hard butter. A pebble in your shoe.
A stubborn child who won’t release the Snicker bar in
the checkout line. An axe to grind against the iceberg. But.
How about that shy, self-deprecating toast burnt black? The
knife hacks away at like it a he-man. But. Cold butter stands
up for the underdog. But. It’s a snowbank scrolled clean crisp
over your front door. No in or out. Trust me: the heart
craves a reason to melt. You see? The golden afghan from
Grandma Lu? The dying little dog upon the golden afghan?
Butter minds its own business. To be generous isn’t hard.
It’s not hard, cold cash. Ha. Hardly. It’s nothing you can
hold in your hands. As if. As soon as you do, it dribbles
right through.
After All
“If you don’t know how to die, don’t worry.”
~Montaigne
the box of doll heads and arms and legs in the attic
your mother never got to trim-stitch together. Their
eyes stuck open. Red mouths painted shut. Your
father’s old barber chair a silver throne whip
spinning at midnight in the living room below
like a bawdy Tilt-a-Whirl while you tossed above
your brother Jim’s eyeglasses on the mantel
fingerprint smudges just a whorl shy of your
own. Metal rims folded. Trim. Cold. Not old
the sad topaz rust of your eyes that are your father’s
eyes. His last call sung too young. Your own far
flung happy hours turning handstands behind you
that blueberry pie your Grandma Lu made bump
cratered soft and sugar-sprinkled. The bodacious
blueberries swelling ripe for you, Annie girl.
the old pay phone ringing in Barber’s Bar & Grill
you pick up religiously with sticky buffalo blue
cheese fingers hoping it’s your mother. Hello?
Anne Panning published a memoir, Dragonfly Notes: On Distance and Loss, as well as Butter, a novel, and two short story collections: The Price of Eggs, and Super America, which won The Flannery O’Connor Award and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. She has published widely in magazines such as Bellingham Review, Prairie Schooner, Florida Review, Passages North, Quarterly West, Kenyon Review, River Teeth, Ruby, and Brevity (5x). She is currently working on a memoir about her late father—a barber and addict. Originally from rural Minnesota, she teaches creative writing at SUNY-Brockport.
Image: morguefile.com
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