one night we’re all sitting at the dinner table.
you know the scene: lantern lights and warm
scents all around, someone’s brought their
great-grandmother’s recipe for meatloaf
that has been passed down for generations;
someone’s added plastic stars to the ceiling
even though we’re already too old for this
(how strange, i don’t remember ever aging);
someone’s set the dinnerware with the
sparkling cups from the china cabinet, the
one’s that look more expensive than they
are but we love them for it: how lovely they
shine, that blue lacquered porcelain against
the soothing orange flames, crisp outlines
blurring against the patchwork tablecloth
that we all made together some time ago;
someone is singing happy birthday even
though it is no one’s birthday, now someone
has brought out the roast chicken from the
oven– oh, that aroma is delicious– we clamor
to pass out praise around the table like gold
coins ( i’ve seen this in a children’s game);
and what a sight we must make, red cheeks drunk
on joy and the simple heaven that steeps like
fine tea leaves into the chipped floorboards
(chipped because we played field hockey indoors
as stupid kids with no concept of how permanence
scars), all sitting in a line on the same side of the table
with popcorn in paper cups and some terrible rom-com
movie projected onto the only blank wall in this colorful
house, and someone is telling the same joke again for
the nth time (we all lost count after one hundred),
and we’re all laughing until we cry, laughing until
we cry, we cry, we cry, over and over the movie on
repeat, laughing until we cry, and surrounded by
friends i mourn the childhood that is slipping away,
mourning them even though we’re still all together,
nothing has changed but it will, it will, (it will be
the last time i hear this joke but i’m sure then it’ll
still be the same, laughing until we all cry). Amen.