canadian ~ twenty-first century literature since 1999


Salt Instead of Seed

by Pino Coluccio

The boy who's lit the lamp again to read
notices a shadow on the snow.
His father's, sowing salt instead of seed

along the walk, who's stopped to pick a bead
of breath that's frozen to his scarf. Although
the boy has lit the lamp to read

he wonders how it would have felt to weed
the beans his father used to grow,
the father sowing salt instead of seed

past the house, who's stumbled on a need
now to dim both the kitchen's cozy glow,
and him, the boy who's lit the lamp to read.

For though the boy had started as a sort of greed
by proxy, that led the man to leave behind his hoe,
while he's sowing salt instead of seed

a page turns; he sees the boy proceed
to chapter one. And knows he doesn't know
the boy who's lit the lamp to read.
The father's sowing salt instead of seed.

Pino Coluccio lives in Toronto, where he was born in 1973 to parents who immigrated from Buonalbergo, a town in the province of Benevento, Italy, in 1958. His work has won a few small prizes and once appeared in Descant magazine.
 

 

 

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TDR is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 

All content is copyright of the person who created it and cannot be copied, printed, or downloaded without the consent of that person. 

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All views expressed are those of the writer only. 

TDR is archived with the Library and Archives Canada

ISSN 1494-6114. 

 

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions de son soutien le Conseil des Arts du Canada.