​POETRY 
   

"All work is sacred, even menial labor,
and the reward for a job well done
is to eat with peace in your heart,
knowing you are entitled."
​
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Dad Eats a Hardboiled Egg  *
by Dan Liberthson

​​He cradles it with fingers egg-cup shaped,
admires it for a long moment, pale blue eyes
struggling for focus behind thick lenses,
turns it carefully counterclockwise,
gazing at its seemingly uniform surface
as though he can see difference there,
snowy mountains and fertile valleys
in this the only egg left in the world.
 
He starts to crack it, turning and rapping
deftly on the table edge as did his father.
Appraising the web of cracks, he nods
and disrobes the egg, studiously peeling it
naked, stroking clean of shell shards
the smooth uncovered skin
with thick, tobacco-stained fingers,
careful not to blemish the white sheen.
 
Lips parted, tongue touching their curves,
breathing slow and shallow, he appreciates
the promise of a small pleasure
cherished through hungry years
on the Lower East Side, of which he said
the only blessing was learning to enjoy
the simplest things. Dad’s blunt fingers
grasp the hexagonal salt shaker
with its dented metal head
and his right hand lifts it to the left.
 
A startlingly sharp tongue snakes out
as he bows his head to lick the left hand,
holding the egg in its fist, at the cleft
between the thumb and index finger.
He shakes an exact measure of salt
onto the wet spot as if ending a ritual dance,
pauses to admire the unspoiled surface
with a solemn, expectant gaze, and intones
All work is sacred, even menial labor,
and the reward for a job well done
is to eat with peace in your heart,
knowing you are entitled.
 
Dad sighs, ahhh, lightly smacks his lips,
raises his hand to lick the salt, and then
bites through the wall of paradise
clear to the yellow sun within.
Such a joyous light spills from his eyes
that even though he’s decades gone
it warms me still.

* Author's Note:  Previously published in the book A Family Album (2006) by Dan Liberthson and revised for this submission.

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​​Dan Liberthson was born in Rochester, New York and attended Northwestern University and SUNY at Buffalo (PhD, English). He has retired from a career as a medical writer, and lives in San Francisco and Cottage Grove, Oregon. He has published five books of poetry and has published individual poems in anthologies and journals, including The Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, South Coast Poetry Journal, Elysian Fields Quarterly, Chaminade Literary Review and Triggerfish. He was Secretary of the Oregon Poetry Association (2019-2022), and took second place in the William Stafford Memorial Award Poetry Contest (2020) and the Maine Poets Society Contest (2022). He also published The Bluejay Contrivance, a spy novel, and The Golden Spider, a middle-grade fantasy novel. For more information, visit liberthson.com.

Other works in this issue:
Poetry:
​Lost Lakes
Dad's Death

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