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.

 

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.

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