I peel an apple while listening to Charlie Parker’s
“Relaxin’ at the Camarillo”

When we come home from school in the afternoon,
my son usually asks me to prepare a snack for him;
something to drink and a sliced apple or some
other fruit.

- Hey, you’re almost eight years old and maybe
it’s about time for you to do your own snack?
I said today.

- But, Dad, I know that you can do a snack for me,
you have done it before. You know how to do it,
he said.

Later, when I was preparing his fruit I realized
he was using my own words, I could hear myself
in my son; trying to get my way with a joke.

But this time it was me, not my wife, who had to
listen to the world’s greatest comedian.

Published in Nerve Cowboy, issue # 19, Spring 2005.