Lament for a Kitchen Table
Emily Strauss The house is empty now after the river came and went, rose up to the lintels, and later fire swept the whole town, people in rain slickers watched the rotting wood smolder for days, holding the dogs, the cats gone with the goats and sheep to the hills to sit soaked in the damp hollows waiting for the floods to stop. Later they returned to the house picked wet photos out of the mud hauled away ruined sofas, mattresses, piles of clothes stinking of the dirty waters that sat for days under the gray sky, but the massive kitchen table remained on the warped floor. The table is too heavy to move, giant turned oak legs held up babies, turkeys, loaves of bread cooling, jars of pickles, the entire harvest of peaches one year, the sewing machine for new dresses, Jim and Megan before they married alone one night stifling groans, grandpa Newman laid out in a clean black suit, the first time, as the relatives gathered for services bringing pies, jello salads, fried chicken, enough food for the entire congregation. Look closely at the table, empty now, naked of napkins and salt, look at that gouge on the edge, where Sonny took his hunting knife to carve his mark before he got shipped off to 'Nam, the rounded corner where Beat, the Great Dane would stand gnawing waiting for table scraps from mom, one corner leg a slightly darker shade after granddad re-painted it to remove Jane's blood from that Thanksgiving accident during the Great War. The table stands alone, as if waiting for us to return, still solid oak an inch thick, ready for dinner that will never arrive, willing to take spills, a hot platter, more teething babies, even a typewriter and stacks of college papers, or a lamp for mom's hand sewing of patches on William's old jeans, cutting down Rita's dresses for little Beth, darning the family's lace-edged tablecloth brought from the old country by ship the table is ready, eager to last one more flood, but this will be the end, too heavy to move, memoried like a photo album or scrapbook lost in the rising river but still standing, lonely without our voices and hands, drying but not warped. O great oak, we will remember you a little longer. |
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About the Author: Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry, which she has written since college. Over 400 of her poems appear in a wide variety of online venues and in anthologies, in the U.S. and abroad. She is both a Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. The natural world of the American West is generally her framework; she also considers the narratives of people and places around her. She is a semi-retired teacher living in California.