thetableintheback

[thetableintheback]

LUCILLE CLIFTON

[thetableintheback]

[text description:

Aubade

I woke up with so much love for you

It doesn't matter where I am

I am making eggs

The sun is warming my just-shaved head

like your hand when sometimes

it rests there /end description]

aubade by yanyi

[thetableintheback]

after i get so jealous of euthanized dogs - jude francis

[text:

the kind of death that someone else apologizes for

where i am not to blame, poor sweet thing, it's for the best and

it's just so cruel

to make anyone go on like this,

hurting and hurting and hurting and

it's okay if i have to go now, and everyone will understand,

really it's the kindest thing to do

because who could stand to watch this anymore,

the joke isn't funny anymore, hasn't been for a while now

so i don't care if i am given pity or mercy

and i don't know if there is a difference.]

[thetableintheback]

after i get so jealous of euthanized dogs - jude francis

[text:

the kind of death that someone else apologizes for

where i am not to blame, poor sweet thing, it's for the best and

it's just so cruel

to make anyone go on like this,

hurting and hurting and hurting and

it's okay if i have to go now, and everyone will understand,

really it's the kindest thing to do

because who could stand to watch this anymore,

the joke isn't funny anymore, hasn't been for a while now

so i don't care if i am given pity or mercy

and i don't know if there is a difference.]

[thetableintheback]

[thetableintheback]

it is a wet tuesday afternoon, or perhaps evening - it is the time of year when the two blur together

when the light lingers long enough to drive home from work before the sun sets

only to eat dinner under the cover of darkness, when it is unclear when the day has ended and the night has begun.

either way, i am crying and thinking of things that do not bear thinking about

like my friend janet, who survived cancer twice and who died in her sleep shortly after i told her i would see her next week,

but this is not what i am crying about, or at least,

not only this.

weak grey light filters past the blue velvet curtains, which my mother bought secondhand, and which are sagging over the window and i'm sure

this is a metaphor for something.

it has been a little over a year since the doctor told me it wasn't cancer, but it wasn't anything he could cure either.

this may well be what i am crying about but i have decided that i have more important things to do now, like fixing the curtains and deciding once and for all how dark it must be

for something to be over.

[thetableintheback]

no morning colder than the first frost / no friends closer than the ones we've lost

Rain in Soho by The Mountain Goats + birds on a telephone wire

[thetableintheback]

do yall know about this

[thetableintheback]

Anne Carson, from "Tag"

[thetableintheback]

two weeks ago i planted fig pits into my palm and nothing happened for the longest time until nowadays whenever i high five someone or shake hands it tastes of fig behind my teeth

[thetableintheback]

[text description:

& so yes,

there is an ocean between us the length of my arm & I have built nothing for you that can survive it

& from here I am close enough to be seen but not close enough to be cherished

& from here, I can see every possible ending before we even touch. /end text description]

*

hanif abdurraqib

[thetableintheback]

from steps by frank o’hara 🫶🏻

[thetableintheback]

[image description: a photograph of a white hand two red and pink sea stars. the hand is out of focus, while the rocks and water in the background are in focus. red text in all lowercase is overlaid on the image. it reads 'suddenly i found you in every little thing'. /description]

[thetableintheback]

Pretend, for example, that you were born in Chicago and have never had the remotest desire to visit Hong Kong, which is only a name on a map for you; pretend that some convulsion, sometimes called accident, throws you into connection with a man or a woman who lives in Hong Kong; and that you fall in love. Hong Kong will immediately cease to be a name and become the center of your life. And you may never know how many people live in Hong Kong. But you will know that one man or one woman lives there without whom you cannot live. And this is how our lives are changed, and this is how we are redeemed.

What a journey this life is! Dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.

—James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket

[thetableintheback]

[text description:

i miss you the way polaris parkway mall has a grand piano at the base of the escalator in the pink carpet pink wall department store. when it was empty, papi would play the three keys to the pink panther theme song. i miss you the way i knew how to do it perfectly, once upon a time, i miss you the way i miss pressing my tongue to teeth until a faint impression makes a jangle out soft chord percussion. i miss you the way i miss all the fireflies once they spray pesticide. one night i woke up to a dark so vast not even the moon could touch me. i miss you the way i miss the mall. arm in arm and ankle aching. for the last year, i've only eaten unripe fruit. i miss you the way i miss summertime wildberries. i miss the soft bite of peach. the sunlight on the peel of mango. i kiss my last box of strawberries into the yard and hope they come back to me wanting. i do miss wanting. i miss holding my breath. i miss turning my lungs inside out. i miss myself into frown lines. i miss you into ribbed over xylophone. when i unbox the house, i leave all last impressions of you up. is this a selfish poem? this is a selfish poet. i miss the long line. i miss the decanter of crystal and tropical storm. i miss you and all the pastel houses on the shore. with hurricane season coming, i miss clear skies. i miss the impression of wood. i shred into tissue-vein paper. i paper-mache a mirror. i miss the reflection. i miss taking the outerbelt home. i miss the abyss of forest. i miss the time before i knew the outerbelt was called the outerbelt. i miss keeping my eyes closed. i miss enjoying my voice. i miss pulling into the space next to the space by lettuce lake park. i miss looking. i do miss looking. i'm sure it had a name, once. i miss remembering our names vividly. i miss us into an oblivion. i miss you into a new language. we break/shift into a new mode of conversation. i miss you like i miss the landline. i do miss the landline. i always loved everyone at the end. briefly, i reconstruct my whole life. /end text description]

"LITANY OF I MISS YOU’S", Sara Hammami

[thetableintheback]

[thetableintheback]

[text description:

Sometimes I think you get the worst

of me. The much-loved loose forest-green

sweatpants, the long bra-less days, hair

knotted and uncivilized, a shadowed brow

where the devilish thoughts do their hoofed

dance on the brain. I'd like to say this means

I love you, the stained white cotton T-shirt,

the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange

peels on my desk, but it's different than that.

I move in this house with you, the way I move

in my mind, unencumbered by beauty's cage.

I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me

than much else. I'm wrong, it is that I love you,

but it's more that when you say it back, lights

out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe

the first time in my life, I believe it.

/end description]

Ada Limón, “Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance”