Art of the Itamae
by Nicole Hirt
Runestone, volume 11
The sushi chef bends over the board,
folding sheets of nori
and splitting the seaweed
sharply, evenly.
Shining red tuna is cubed under the Itamae’s
flashing blade, his gloved fingers
quick and precise.
They caress the rice
as he pats it down on the nori, pale green
wasabi sliding over the sticky white grains.
He transposes the tuna from board to rice,
gripping the bamboo bat as gentleness
hardens.
Rolling, rolling, rolling,
Chop and slice and cut
The Itamae offers the plate, the masterpiece,
and shoos me away.
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Nicole Hirt
Palm Beach Atlantic University
Nicole Hirt is an English major and creative writing minor at Palm Beach Atlantic University. She is an editor at Living Waters Review, her university’s literary journal. Her works have appeared in The Bluebird Word and Westmarch Literary Journal, and are forthcoming in As Surely as the Sun and Blue Marble Review. In her free time, she enjoys wandering through cemeteries.