Friday, April 15, 2011

Appetite by Maxine Kumin

I eat these
wild red raspberries
still warm from the sun
and smelling faintly of jewel weed
in memory of my father

tucking the napkin
under his chin and bending
over an ironstone bowl
of the bright drupelets
awash in cream

my father
with the sigh of a man
who has seen all and been redeemed
said time after time
as he lifted his spoon

men kill for this.


This poem is essentially a run-on sentence in which Kumin is remembering her father and the way he used to eat. Her appetite reminds her of her father, just as her home reminds her of her mother (in Where I Live). The final line "men kill for this" is an example of an envoi, and concludes the poem with a strange change in tone, from reminiscent of her father's life to a lighter more humorous tone.

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