Fifty miles from anywhere
the table is set with dirty napkins,
smudged wine glasses,
and twisted spoons in the branch-like hands
of men and women who arrived
by different angles and patterns.
Frank, who showed up
on a horse one day; Anna, who’s been
sleeping in Dave’s bed for years.
Dave clears off space on his kitchen table
one night each week, for anyone
who might smell chocolate fondue
from down the road where he is smoking.
Old fertilizer sacks frame the windows
and smell of steak medium rare,
evenings of Mavericks and poker,
the chef’s black cat Ginger
(and the Gingers that came before).
Frank faces the ceiling:
He uses the tip of his tongue
to move a tooth in circles,
wider and wider until it clicks.
It joins the others
in the little box on the window ledge.
Dave tells Frank’s story again,
how he shot a man who robbed a bank,
or robbed the bank himself.
Discussion of politics, the good kind:
Tom went off to Iraq, Bill’s boy,
and what a shame but you know
he signed up for that. Didn’t run
to Canada like we did. Didn’t have to.
Forks spear asparagus, buttery potatoes,
meat cut against the grain, leaking blood.
Red wine to wash down the talk
of the unknown philosophers.
It’s nothing special,
but where else can you find
people who notice crooked trees
or the coded spiral eyes
on a Yukon Gold potato.