Read the poem, "Eating Mulberries for Breakfast" from Swallowing the Soap: New and Selected Poems
by William Kloefkorn, edited and with an introduction by Ted Genoways:
Eating Mulberries for Breakfast
Mostly purple, purple becoming snowdrift
as sugar falls from the small mouth
of the dispenser,
as sugar falls from the small mouth
of the dispenser,
purple you gathered from the tree just
yesterday, your little brother
above you lost almost
yesterday, your little brother
above you lost almost
in branches of purple, purple rising
in the bowl as the thick milk
rises, and with a silver spoon
in the bowl as the thick milk
rises, and with a silver spoon
you begin to eat what you know
your buddy Gene will laugh at
when you tell him, if you
your buddy Gene will laugh at
when you tell him, if you
tell him, snowdrift sugar and purple
berries and white Jersey milk
succulent in the mouth,
berries and white Jersey milk
succulent in the mouth,
across the table your little brother
dribbling rivulets of juice,
slurping and dribbling
dribbling rivulets of juice,
slurping and dribbling
and chewing and purple teeth delighted
beyond delight, and you think
to hell with your buddy Gene,
beyond delight, and you think
to hell with your buddy Gene,
your better-off buddy who doesn’t know
what’s good and what isn’t, who
doesn’t have the brains
what’s good and what isn’t, who
doesn’t have the brains
he might have been born with, who doesn’t
have a little brother like mine who,
when the moment is ripest,
have a little brother like mine who,
when the moment is ripest,
goes out on the very highest limb.
William Kloefkorn is an emeritus professor of English at Nebraska Wesleyan University. He is the author of many volumes of poetry and a four-volume memoir: This Death by Drowning, Restoring the Burnt Child, At Home on This Moveable Earth, and Breathing in the Fullness of Time, all published by the University of Nebraska Press. Ted Genoways is the editor of Virginia Quarterly Review and the author of Bullroarer: A Sequence. He has edited numerous books, including The Selected Poems of Miguel Hernández.
To read a longer excerpt or to purchase Swallowing the Soap, visit http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Swallowing-the-Soap,674675.aspx.
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