Concept: Dinner Table

 Danielle Walczak

When I cook she always comes to the kitchen

nib-nib-nibbling at sautéing onions

to tomatoes taking their last breath

 

October is next

and the beets infuse water

purple

painting, my fingers with their blood

she said

she didn’t know beets looked like that

“Are you sure they aren’t something else,” she asks

I keep cooking, adding salt to the wound.

 

It’s getting colder next

and as sweet fruits end their war with winter

I bring dinner to the table

she’s already finished.

I eat alone.

 

I eat alone and remember being younger

dangling feet and mashed potato mountains

sing-sing-singing with my sister.

Dad would say, “No songs at the dinner table.”

We’d reply, “We’re singing because we’re happy, dad.”

We’d giggle and eat, eat, eat.

 

It was good.

 

These days

I read while I eat but find it hard to focus

on

the people’s climate march

Ferguson gay NFL girl health health care gay woman sex ISIL ISIS

Journalist dead!

Journalist dead dead bomb killing trash trash smack facts dead cold gone gone frost

It’s going to seed,

They’re going to seed!

 

I eat alone.

 

They’re going to seed.