Mother knocks the hotdish against her kitchen’s swinging gate.
Refusal prances before her mouth can. “Can I help?”
Sister stands despite, but before, ”With all my love, a mighty bore,”
and we are seated as we were the night before.
My moodiness swings above the chandelier.
The salad fork practices for vegetables I refuse to eat.
Somber sits at the edge of my Father’s tongue, while him the head.
Grandmother politens a hurl as she tries rhubarb, not from her kitchen.
My brother tugs at his shorts and socks, “May I leave, Mother?”
But Mother’s bathed him twice today.
We plated, pissed, and passed around.
From the window in: food ran scarce when sat next to our love.
Arranged in delicacy— deviled eggs, celery hearts, and the body of a pig—
Though it was far from conversation; portrayed in selfish favor.
Senate took his seat in the polls, and words of the table.
Uncle’s opinions sit folded in his lap; he doesn’t use it.
The table serves him last, though no one notices, or asks why.
Uncle jesters for anew, though the table sturdy’s and declares, “You must be weak.”
I drop my salad fork, stand, through red bleak negotiations,
no one hears it, the silver skipping twice.
I cower under the table to reach for it,
but my stone isn’t flat, it doesn’t reach far across the river,
and the conversation stays the same.
The women stand, clearing the dishes; no one here wishes for more.
Though I stay seated, creasing the edge of the tablecloth tucked in my hand.
Love is a close friend, from the outside in; it must fill our words?
The rhubarb pie is packed up, Grandmother rudely declines.
Mother stacks the plates by color, never size.
The newspaper is folded; my father’s scrawl is witnessed.
I sit at the table, drawing a story that I’m still eating
not to avoid help, but to let my words be the only of the table.
I hear the door creak open, then the hinges close.
From the window in, Uncle turns and waves me goodbye.
He offers a smile in the room he left;
though I know it’s because everyone else has gone.
s.g
