Dark wood — the coffee table.
Thick, the grain hidden with black stain
and the bark on the edges black-stained
as well — an uneven top all around although
the surface is slick as glass and flat as a window
one could see oneself in — one could see oneself
in there if that background was mirrored
but it’s not. It’s a slab of blackened wood
with four legs and that’s all. Legs
don’t gambol or trot, solid
as a dead rock, and that’s it. Simple.
No matter how I try to fill blanks with it
it stays simple. I am legless before it —
unable to move as I always have before now.
I can’t see myself in there. It’s just a table,
dark wood table, coffee table, center
of the room, placed carelessly there
to hold things placed carelessly there.
I can’t move. I can only close my eyes
and wish one of us or both of us could fly.

onward,
T