Before the Airport, Sushi by Tomás Q. Morín

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 9, 2015   Before the Airport, Sushi   Tomás Q. Morín

The old man sitting out front on the empty patio eating fried chicken or something or other, bought up the block probably, and not from the house of sushi we were entering, didn’t inspire confidence exactly, but when you returned from the wall of fame to our table with your chopsticks in the box you decorated how many years ago I forget, and told me regulars from way back need never use the disposable ones wrapped in paper like straws that are not smooth like yours that looked polished and like they were cut from a yew, unlike my conjoined sticks that were little more than gargantuan toothpicks for some race of giants that I had only to separate with one clean snap and prove were fool proof, only the engineer who had retired on the patent for the design of my chopsticks never met a fool such as I and so the operation was a failure except for your laughter, an unexpected development for which I would have botched the next set on purpose, and the next only our seaweed salad had arrived and it was time for me, a lifelong worshipper of the miniature shovel and pitchfork to stumble across a tiny plate with my Chinese finger crutches, only I didn’t and before I knew it my hand was Fred Astaire on stilts and the seaweed salad was gone, followed by half the maki, and there was only the one pink piece that separated from the crunchy roe and its rice wheel that I spit out because it felt like a tongue and tasted of death, which makes perfect sense because it was dead, and had our meal ended there, I would now be celebrating the virtues of keeping an open mind to new food, instead of how life can surprise us so much, one day I’m not eating maple syrup on a steak or cheese by the block like everyone who’s never been to Vermont would expect, rather sushi and mastering chopsticks and looking up to see a golden braid of hair I had never noticed was golden unraveling against your shoulder so slowly that it looks alive so much that for a moment there are suddenly three of us at the table: me, you, and your braid that you don’t seem to care is losing what only a few minutes before I would have called a battle with gravity, except now I understand the pull of the earth isn’t always harsh and impatient, that it can be gentle, can nudge a twist of hair loose and in so doing, slow down time and that song about goodbyes and the heavy wrap of winter that fills the sky of every airport town in late summer, slow that music down just enough to make a soul with two left feet like my own jump up and dance.            Copyright © 2015 by Tomás Q. Morín. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “As the poem describes, a friend was introducing me to sushi before I flew back to Texas from Vermont. It was a normal afternoon except for the fact that I had recently decided to stop looking at my phone so often, at least when I was out and about. If I hadn’t done that then when I was sitting across from her in that restaurant and the sunlight broke in through the window and fell on her, I probably wouldn’t have noticed her hair come alive. It’s so easy to take the mystery of the world for granted when we stop looking at it.” —Tomás Q. Morín   Tomás Q. Morín is the author of A Larger Country (Copper Canyon Press, 2012). He teaches at St. Edward’s University and lives in San Marcos, Texas.   Photo Credit: Erin Evans Most Recent Book by Morín   A Larger Country (Copper Canyon Press, 2012) "Man Eating" by Jane Kenyon "Breakfast" by Minnie Bruce Pratt "Eating the Bones" by Ellen Bass Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038