Sweet Corn
By: Roger Sippl
Corn is different.
Sweet and white,
so boil water in a pot now
at home as mom
stops at a field
owned by someone she knows
but doesn’t care for,
flashes into the rows,
at least five deep
to get past the cow corn
and right back out
with the good stuff,
that has only one hour
to get into and out of the pot
(more fruit stands
but no time
to stop)
and be eaten with butter, pepper
and salt —
only that sweetness,
short time in the mouth,
lasts forever.
Roger Sippl studied creative writing at the University of California at Irvine, the University of California at Berkeley (under Thom Gunn) and at Stanford Continuing Studies. He has published poetry in the Ocean State Review, Open Thought Vortex, Her Heart Poetry, Bacopa Literary Review, The Write Launch, Alternating Currents, Sediments Literary-Arts Journal, Smeuse Poetry, Poker Brat, Snapdragon, Wising Up Press, Medussa’s Laugh and two medical journals, JAMA Oncology and CHEST.
He has written his first novel, which is in revision. While a student at UC Berkeley in the 1970’s, Sippl was diagnosed with Stage IIIB Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, which was treated aggressively with surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, allowing him to live relapse-free to this day.
