MN poetry: Todd Boss' 'Apple Slices'

Posted at 4:52 PM on March 12, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Minnesota Poets, Poetry

Todd Boss grew up on eighty-acre cattle farm in central Wisconsin. He received his MFA in poetry from the University of Alaska-Anchorage. His first collection, Yellowrocket, was a Midwest Booksellers' Choice Awards Honor Book. He'll celebrate the launch of his second book, Pitch, this Wednesday at the Loft Literary Center at 7pm. Here's one of his poems from the new collection.

Apple Slices

-- eaten right
off the jackknife in
moons, half-moons,
quarter-moons and
crescents --

still
summon common
summer afternoons
I spent as my dad's
jobsite grunt, framing
future neighbors'
houses out of 2x4s
and 4x6s,

and our
brief and silent pick-
up tailgate lunch-
box lunch breaks
of link sausage,
longhorn cheddar,
larder pickles, cold
leftover roast-beef-
and-butter sandwiches
wrapped in paper,
a couple of pippins
from the Fall Crick
Pick 'n Save, and --
flavored of tin from
the lip of the cup
of a dented thermos
passed between us--
a hard-earned share
of still-chill well
water...

Now
so many waned and
waxed moons later,
another well-paid,
well-fed college-
bred paper-pusher, I
wonder that I've never
labored harder, nor
eaten better.

- "Apple Slices," by Todd Boss, as it appears in his collection Pitch, published by W. W. Norton & Company. Reprinted here with permission of the author.