Friday, July 13, 2012

AT TABLE

photo: sharon auberle


 AT TABLE
by Michael Koehler

Chew on the gristle of these words.
Do they fill that hollow craving
that yawns just below the heart?
I sit at the table of my life,
plates loaded with all I desire,
heavy wine glistening in the flagrant candlelight.
My ghostly guests raise a toast to me, their host.
Old Loneliness stares into his cups,
mutters what could be a curse.
The Little Boy who was rewarded with snacks
eats all the greens on his plate out of fear.
Sadness picks at her food, goes hard on the Cabernet.
The Junkie has abandoned the table altogether
and sits now in the light of the refrigerator.
With one expansive gesture I ingest them all.
If there are skeletons in any of the closets of my heart
they are the bones of ancestors picked clean long ago.

~ first published in Fox Cry Review