Chopsticks

Your order comes,

and you pick up the pair of chopsticks as one

without thinking.

You stop conversation only to bring tuna to your mouth;

the meat redder than your lips,

the wooden sticks the color of your fingers.

You and I were just sticks once,

alone like the first diagram on the cheery chopstick wrapper:

“Tuck under thumb and hold firmly.”

And then we met -

            “And second chopstick hold it as you hold pencil” -

My aunts taught you proper form,

and now together we can pick up anything.

We move in tandem toward lunch,

and I’m confident watching you

that no raw or scalding meal will be served

that we cannot handle.