Supper
"Conflagration" by Barbara Milman
Supper
Rochelle Natt
Unbearable, she thinks, the clacking
of fork tines against china and teeth.
Even the bow slide
of speared meat is discordant.
Spoons are merciful
in the silence of scooping cantaloupe
from the grainy rind, wetted and dark
as moss and bracken.
She does not flinch
at the whip crack of hunger
History demands she eat black bread,
matchstick fingers picking, picking.
A crust tucked in her sleeve
near the backstitched seam of folded money.
Someone can be paid to look away
as she passes through the gate.
Why is she the only one here at the table
whose nostrils fill with singed air?
Why are her eyes
plugged into sockets of night?
Soon she'll be whittled down
to bone and soul.
There will be no chewing, no clink
of glass or silverware to jar her.
Her body will leave itself,
become a spiderweb
the living disturb