Lunch Series #2 at Pacific City, Pastel, by John Cummings
NONE OTHER
You know you’re in trouble when you wake up
at six-thirty on a January morning from a dream
in which you were eating a baked potato,
wondering, bite by bite, when you would finally taste it—
taste the part of the potato that makes it none other—
different from a carrot, distinct from rutabagas,
yams, onions, parsnips,
all those roots that winter relies on
when everything else has run out
or gone rancid…
The bed is so warm that you are sweating.
You toss off the blankets. Beside you, your wife is asleep—
dreaming what? That’s always a question—
awake or unconscious,
what thoughts occupy another person’s mind?
Only sometimes, in the early morning,
you hear her breathing change,
coming in short gasps,
and recognize she’s having a nightmare.
Then you nudge her, or rub her shoulder.
She might thank you for waking her,
though more often she rolls over
and you’re alone with the darkness,
which never explains its odd visions and conundrums…
You look at her face. It’s light enough to see
without a lamp on, and you can’t decide
if you are still too warm, or if you’re cold—
if you should pull the covers up around your chin,
or dress, make coffee…The cat, who woke you,
prefers you to do the latter, since you will feed him.
He’s standing on your pillow, purring loudly.
And you ask yourself, was it a russet or Yukon gold?
You hadn’t finished eating. All that steam is gone.
The starchy odor so pervasive moments ago
is replaced by the scent of lavender in the bedsheets.
Yes, you’re in trouble.
You lived a long portion of your life believing
that somewhere inside the potato is the potato
that makes it none other,
and have lived an even longer portion of your life aware of
how delusive this belief is.
So, you pull blankets back over your head,
prolonging the darkness, and burrow in deep,
chilled from lying uncovered.
All you know for sure is that, given enough time,
green, drowsy eyes will open
in the root’s brown skin—and somehow,
when you plant one potato, you end up with more…
_______________
William Welch
Review by Jared Pearce
I like the rambling transitions here that keep the poem on its feet all the way to the consideration that one potato, one dream, holds the root to a thousand more.