On the Kitchen Table

By Morgan Neering

A woman filled with the joy of living

returns home

puts her keys on the table

receipts from the store,

puts the bills in a bowl there, too.

She puts there the cherries and the apple tart

the things she’d hoped she’d do

a letter from her sister alongside

the sound of her grandchildren laughing

and rolling dice from last night’s game.

On the table the woman put

her fullness and her rest

her hunger and her wakefulness

the beer she meant to drink last night

and the man that sang in the car ahead of her

she put that there, too.

A flower she picked from the bushes outside

and the heartbreak of her mother

the way she felt when her sister died

and a wedding invitation from ten years back

all piled up

on the kitchen table.

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