Old Butter

For weeks I’ve watched
two butter sticks
stuck in a bowl,
no cookies to fatten,
no cakes to enrich
with oily soul.

They lie side by side
in their shiny round world,
bars of old sunshine
waiting to lighten a dark dough,
lounging like lions,
two hunks of fat in hibernation.

They’re waiting
for a meal.
They’re yearning
for a batter not yet formed.
They’re longing
for hands to stir them into shine.


—Eric Nelson