A Small Moment

By Cornelius Eady b. 1954 Cornelius Eady

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.

Biography

Poet and cofounder of Cave Canem, Cornelius Eady has published more than half a dozen volumes of poetry, among them Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1985), winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets; The Gathering of My Name (1991), nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; and Brutal Imagination (2001), a National Book Award finalist. Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems appeared in 2008.

Brutal . . .

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