I continue to wrap up my residency by sharing some of my own writing produced in response to previous prompts I’ve offered over the last six months.

While I imagined sharing multiple pieces this week, I instead have one to share. But it’s one I really like—at least right now.

This poem came out of prompt #21: In the kitchen. It’s a poem about our kitchen table, and where it came from, and how much I love eating at that table with my family, a small portion of a much larger family I carry with me as I move through my life. Influenced by the Joy Harjo poem I shared previously and rooted in the reflections brought about by my days centered around my own kitchen table.

Here is my kitchen poem:

Family reunion

after Joy Harjo

I am told the kitchen table belonged to my grandfather and grandmother, their first big purchase together. I am told there was an argument over a hot dish placed directly on its surface. I don’t know who the guilty party was, the one who did it or the one who got mad, but the mark still stands, and the table has since collected an aged countenance, wrinkles in the form of indiscriminate scratches and water marks, one from my own water glass earlier today. And we sit around the table regardless, or because of it, adding our own stories to the family lore. The long day at work, the baby’s first sweet potato. There is no way to know how these days will end—blood cancer, a bomb, a good, long dream—or what will happen to the table when they do. I like to imagine with each breath another chair is pulled up at the family reunion we’ve all got on our calendars, we just don’t know when.  

As always, thanks for reading. I’ll be back next week with one final post.

If you’ve been writing along with me, you can share what you’ve been up to via email at sklblauren@gmail.com.

Best,

L.A. Sklba