At the Dinnertable
i wrote you this poem
instead of making dinner.
caught up between
the smells and the syntax
of my never-ending thought machine.
running through our old memories like
“Are you still watching __________?”
and
“Please agree to our new terms and services.”
with and without you,
we’re prompted to remember.
i’ve got fresh produce in the fridge
and red wine waiting for our lips.
you’ve yet to come home
when i scribbled this on a napkin.
before i realized where you went
where you’d never return.
like the sea that can swallow ships.
like the meals we’d no longer consume.
without you here, i am full of reruns.
i am the endless reel of home-movie-night,
leftovers to entertain us through the evening.
left behind for meal-prep and stew-smile.
to help us organize our thoughts
into sensible gibberish
so that we can remember what it means
to eat again.
and so we’re learning to cope,
we’re learning to eat without you.
