THE BLASTED SPOON DHR
I found it buried in Grandma’s drawer,
the blasted wooden spoon with the burn mark
and the hairline crack God knows what from.
She snatched it from my hand like it was alive.
“That thing’s seen more trouble than you,” she said,
and the air in the kitchen shifted,
as if the spoon remembered something
and was waiting to see if I did too.
It wasn’t for stirring beans.
It wasn’t for tasting stew.
that spoon was for pointing ... slow, deliberate
at any child that had forgotten their manners.
My father swore he could hear it hum
before it struck the table.
My mother said it twitched in the drawer
when someone lied in the next room.
By the time it came for my generation,
we didn’t need the smack,
just the lift of Grandma’s hand toward the drawer,
the shadow of the spoon rising like judgment.
And years later, when my own children tested me,
I reached for it not in a drawer, but in its own crock
felt its weight settle into my palm,
felt every ancestor nod in approval.
The spoon never touched them.
It didn’t have to.
Some objects carry their own history,
and this one still waits in the crock,
quiet as a predator stalking its prey.
Copyright © Gwen Ochsenbein | Year Posted 2026
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