the last supper

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.