I WANT A LARGE SPOON
By John McKernan


To serve up
Gigantic helpings of the universe

No single threads
Of star light
Plunging into chlorophyll

No solitary
Oxygen molecule
Nursing a blood cell
Back to life

On Planet Earth
I survive on scraps
Words
Silent vowels & silent consonants
The spaces between words

I also want a large fork
A sharp knife
A well-inked skillet
The size of Jupiter
I am hungry
But hold the bib


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John McKernan – who grew up in Omaha Nebraska in the middle of the USA– is now a retired comma herder after teaching 41 years at Marshall University. He lives – mostly – in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is a selected poems Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Journal, Antioch Review, Guernica, Field and many other magazines