The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach – some say. Poet David R. Surette brings the sandwich from the banal to the High Holy.

Poet David R. Surette

Sandwich

It was her sandwiches
that did me in, made me say,
I love you, the words that had never
crossed my lips to anyone.
It was how her hands moved,
mixing the ingredients,
mayo and pickle,
spreading the tuna,
the bread swelling
in the middle from the abundance,
threatening to pull the structure
apart, and if it did, it was an ecstasy.
She used only one can
of tuna to feed us both when my mother
could make a can feed a family of six,
used peanut butter and jelly as thin
coats of paint and lost deviled ham
in the mayo but not you, dear.
You knew that love is abundance
especially at the beginning
and in the face of future
famine, you made sure we
feasted in the good times.

*

– David R. Surette

****David’s latest poetry collection is Wicked Hard.

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