Slicing a Cucumber

Slicing a cucumber,

The skin pushing back

Against the blade

Thirteen years dulled,

A wedding gift.

One, two, three, four

Quarter-inch always veering to the left;

I hunch over the countertop

My daughter an unending string

Of questions at my elbow.

I see her expressions without looking.

Does it matter I don’t look?

That all I see

Is imperfectly round

Seeded flesh,

Fanned out on a Ziploc baggie?

Does it matter my field of vision

Has shrunk so

That all that can matter in this moment

Is that I’m standing

In my kitchen

Willing my hands

To move in predictable patterns?

That all that can matter

Is that I’m still here

Slicing a cucumber?