Stabilizing fears in time

11/20/96

Trying to stabilize fears, 
the table shifts 
from coffeehouse to kitchen 
and I apron myself four decades backward, 
waiting for the tilted surface 
to rock back toward me, 
back to when my hands first encircled 
wrinkled meat and juices. 
Now though a five year old flame is lit 
and soft grease hungers through the house 
before I realize my danger and switch it off, 
yet the boy sits at the tilting table reading its 
defiant surface just as I once did many states back. 
I remember him in that chair last week, 
his head bowed into his hands 
and grief in his questions when I tell him 
unwanted pets are killed. 
For him all those deaths have just happened and he 
cries grandfather tears. 
"are there pounds for people too?" 
"not in this country, not yet"