I learned to chop from the hand.
The onion a palm-cupped moon
sliced by a blade almost
grazing thenar eminence.
Was trained well before YouTube and
Top Chef told me I had it all wrong,
before my cousin went to culinary school
and brought back the gospel of
tucking fingers on cutting boards.
It was my hand in the pan,
inevitable burns, cuts that meant
I had skin in this game
the least I can offer for a meal with no hunt.
My hands not toiling with much soil—
what could I sacrifice for a harvested vegetable,
treetop-plucked fruit, cream from
an animal whose name I do not know,
nor felt the fear of her kick in my chest?
I learned from those who as children knew
the heartbreak of naming whom would be slaughtered.
My part now:
a swipe of my credit card. Electronic notes
in a world full of blood and tendon,
exhausted muscles, pesticide leukemia,
weary backs that bend nonetheless
under a hot sun.
These hands may shake in fear
of what has made its intentions known,
but they will feed me and mine
in the way of my people
so used to living in the cut
where danger and love dwell:
a pot
a table
a stove
a knife.
Copyright © 2025 by Bettina Judd. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 2, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
