The tale of the dining table as told to itself
by Kathryn Reese
​​leave--to cause to remain as a consequence, sign etc. "The wound leaves a scar" (The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary of the English Language: Encyclopedic edition New York: Lexicon Publications 1897)
and you have a heart on your leg, engraved with a compass, the sharp edge of boredom, of having to sit here til the job’s done. You're watched but not closely enough. Your face polished, the crumbs of a spilled breakfast scrubbed away with a damp cloth. Somehow, you feel dirtier after that, as if it's your fault, everything is your fault. You didn't move except when you were nudged or kicked or slammed with a hip, but then there was cereal and milk, drying and staling all morning.
and you remember it was not always like this, people used to gather around and say grace, there was a tablecloth with a laced fringe. Instead of pencil shavings and eraser dust, you held roast meat, gravy, so many veg and a baked dessert. If there were guests, they might be asked to pray or to tell the best thing that happened today? As if this is what happens every day, everyone finishes what's on their plates, and there is never any waste.
what grace? Only sit straight, don't wriggle, no elbows, smile, and chew with your mouth closed. Not just that, but what is under: the breath, my god, this child, that mouth! The toe colliding with a shinbone, hush up, don't cry, and then, the moments when the hush came. When no one spoke for weeks, and you were filled with half-empty mugs, half-filled pages of sums, half-eaten packets of BBQ shapes, a grease-stained pizza box, and fruit that no one touched, plums fermenting, purple ooze soaking into your grain.
clean yourself up, one day, as best you can. Polish out the oil marks and Texta pens and lament every scratch, the dried gum and ossified might-have-been Play-Doh or royal icing or fermented plum. You're not in a fairy tale, you're not a four-poster bed adorned with silk sheets, soft pillows, and those little plastic torches that look like candles. But if you are given these things, you might
again, make yourself a cave, the best place for hiding.
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BIO
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Kathryn Reese is a queer writer living on Peramangk land in Adelaide, South Australia. She works in medical science and enjoys road trips, hiking, and chasing frogs to record their calls for science. Her poems are in The Engine Idling, Temple in a City, Crowstep, and Red Room Poetry. Flash in Glassworks, Blood +Honey, & Literary Namjooning. Collaborative writing in Gone Lawn, Midway Journal & Many Wor(l)ds. ​
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SOCIAL MEDIA
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Bluesky: @kathrynreese
Instagram: @katwhetter
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