The Beautiful Sandwich

Brad Ricca is the Edgar-nominated author of the bestselling Mrs. Sherlock Holmes (2017) and Super Boys (2014), winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Nonfiction and a Booklist Top 10 Book on the Arts. He is also the author of American Mastodon, winner of the 2009 St. Lawrence Book Award. He lives with his family in Cleveland.

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She could always make
the most beautiful sandwich.
Laced swiss cheese: sliced
crossways, folded once.
Ham in rolls like sleeping bags.
Turkey piled like shirts.
Tarragon. Oregano. Pepper.
Herb dill mayonnaise the color of
skin. On top: the thin, wandering line of
mustard
like a contour on a map
in a thin, flat drawer.
Or a single, lost vein.
The poppyseeds hold on,
for now.

Placed on a plate like isolated
driftwood
or a large, solemn head.
The spilled chips in yellow piles
are like the strange coins
of tall, awkward islanders.
The thin dill pickle: their boat
slides into
the green-sour sea.

Brad Ricca, "The Beautiful Sandwich" from American Mastodon, © Black Lawrence Press. Shared from the Writer’s Almanac email, Wednesday, February 17, 2021