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Evening Meal
a poem about an evening meal
An old man and a young woman are having dinner
at the next table. She is, perhaps, his grown daughter.
She drinks her coffee with an abstract look in her eyes.
She is in a suit, and he wears a soft sweater,
with the shoulder seams drooping a little.
He carefully wipes his mouth
after every second bite, his napkin trembling.
There is a nursing home a few blocks south
and I think perhaps she has brought him out
for a forbidden meal. She does not watch him eat.
Perhaps she is wondering how much longer
he’ll be able to feed himself,
how long before the cancer or the tumor or the madness,
already dangerously blooming, explodes
through his body. Perhaps she is thinking of asking someone
why these things happen, finding out what can be done.
He is thinking that he is proud of her,
that her mother would be proud of her,
that the dinner will surely cost more
than ten dollars, that ten dollars once paid
for a week’s worth of groceries. He doesn’t think
of his body, only that he…
