Sur La Table

The day is a well set
Dining room table
Falling off a
Twenty-four-hour-high building
And there is something
Exceedingly curious
In the silence of the silverware
Not unlike
The romances of older women
Who mortgage children
And launder husbands
To pay for half-bottles
Of pinot noir
And stalk like jawless beasts
Through the farmer’s market
And I can sense that
The table cloth is white
Not as an irony
But of bleach
And the salty tears
Of freshly beached whales
Wincing and sputtering
Like a Sunday morning
Without the traces of whiskey
That cling to the eyelashes
Of my better-halves

“Try to imagine that if
There were a slight breeze
Coming from the northeast
There’s a chance
That the glassware
Might not mix
With the potatoes”
Says the tablecloth
Ironically very
Unironically
But while it loses
Itself in the metaphor
Of the potatoes
The tide slowly recedes
On the Thames
And you can’t help but
Imagine how many atoms
Are in your espresso
Or in the girl you loved
Or the other over there

From a distance
I’m sure
It all looks like an angel
Falling from a tall building
And in that day
You’re like the wishbone
Of the falling turkey
Or angel
And all you can imagine
Is what will happen
When the bone hits the
Ground below and breaks
And maybe you’ll get lucky
But the angel lands
Upright

And you’re sure
At one point
It all just got mixed together
Like if you played Pet Sounds
All at once
On different record players
And the volume on seven
Or eight
But when the legs of the table
Hit the ground
I can see a neatly arranged
Dinner for four
And it’s your dining room
The sun has just set
And suddenly as always
You haven’t got a fork.