Martha Rhodes

Potato | The Surface
May 19, 2016 Rhodes Martha

Potato

 

I do not want to finish my potato,

but feel guilty not to finish my potato.

 

Many died for lack of potatoes,

but I don’t want it, that potato

 

mushed on my plate, unsalted and dry.

Oh I wish it was an orange potato,

 

sweet, pretty, brightly hopeful—

but this one’s white, or really yellow.

 

I’ve asked Mother, why, always potatoes—

can’t we sometimes have rice or turnips?

 

You know how your father loves his potatoes.

(But he’s gone, Mother, gone. He’s been gone for months.)

 

He’ll be back. And he’ll smell the potatoes

as he comes through that door, so happy to return

 

 

to a plate of potatoes—just eat your potato

Be thankful you’re not starving.

 

I’m thankful, I am, that I’m not starving, but

I do not want this goddamn potato.

 

Father’s chair’s empty as it will be tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

The Surface

 

A lake in February—

flat, grey, smooth

and the skate blade

drives itself across the surface

though the sun beats warmer

each month passing so that even

in July, August, September the surface

glistens hard with  figure 8’s, hopscotch grids,

 

criss-crosses. When people look at me

they hold their breaths, suck in.

What, what, so what? I yell.

You think your life’s any better than mine?

Yes, they all answer. So I’ve stopped going out.

And he keeps up the skating all year long.

Martha Rhodes is the author of five poetry collections, most recently “The Thin Wall.” She is a member of the faculty of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and is the publisher of Four Way Books. She lives in New York City.