Because he has been starving,
the woodsman wishes for a skillet of hot sausages,
and because she is infuriated at his stupidity,
his lack of vision, shall we say,
his wife wishes the skillet would stick to his nose,
and thus the last wish must be also wasted
by asking the genie to please
remove the cast-iron pan from the poor man's face.
Hovering in the smoke
that wafts up from his exotic bottle,
the genie knew all along that the couple
would never escape their miserable lot --
the cheerless hovel, a thin dog in the corner,
the cold skillet resting on the cold stove --
and we knew this too, looking down from
the cloud of a sofa into the world of a book.
The man is a fool, it is easily said.
He could have wished for a million gold coins,
his wife will remind him every day
for the rest of their rueful lives,
or a million golden skillets
if he had a little imaginative flair,
and that is the pebble of truth
the story wishes to place in one of our shoes.
Nothing can come from nothing,
I nod with the rest of the congregation.
Three wishes is three wishes too many,
I mutter piously as I look up from the story.
But every time I hear it,
all I ever really feel besides a wave
of tenderness for the poor woodsman
is a biting hunger for sausages --
a sudden desire for a winter night,
a light snow falling outside,
my ax leaning by the door,
my heavyset wife at the stove,
and a skillet full of sizzling sausages,
maybe some green peppers, a few onions,
and for my seventh and final wish,
a decent bottle of Italian or even Chilean red.
(c)1999 by The Gettysburg Review.
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