A Rosewood Table

Thin shallow scars crisscrossed across the tabletop

              Made by nervous tapping.             

                  Slowly chipping away at the once-polished rosewood,

                                       Anxious scribbles that pressed too deeply into the freshly printed paper,

               Rusty Box knives that had been put down too heavily.

Orange juice stains,

                     pen ink

                                     cigarette ash,

     smeared across the tabletop resembling the strokes of an oil painting.

Familiar vagrant smells of sweat and vomit clung onto battered legs.

                                        Legs that had been worn down to the bones. 

     Yellowed glue.

              Carelessly smeared on each week.

                                                              hung in lumps from the table.

                            A poorly attempt to keep it together

 Once sharp clean edges.

            now uneven and rounded, marred by scraped off gum

                        Etched in messages with sharpened pencils around the side.

the markings of a past life.