Empty Plates
- by tagorton
She has tried for years
to conjure evidence of love.
Amidst the fumbling antics
of hand to breast and
rod to hole,
she collects fantasies
from airbrushed magazines.
Nine-to-five layers her
days like dust.
Windex, Comet and Resolve
seeps into pores, make her
veins burn for something lewd
while the furniture sparkles,
mirroring frowns of varnished disregard.
Pots-and-pans pound home
music on the stove,
making indentations on her soul
like steel spoons scraping
along a non-stick imposter;
the hours of boiling noodles
simmer her depths of discontent.
Over steaming plates loom
faces locked in idle conversation,
words sifting through the clank of
fork on knife on chipped enamel dinnerware.
Sometimes, late at night,
she takes clean dishes and sets them on the table.
She pretends to love the empty chair.
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