September 24, 2024

first course

We almost moved to Wisconsin 
because of the trout salad at the Driftless Café.

Halfway into Nebraska, a burger restaurant
with a stuffed giraffe at the center. 

Inside every gas station, the same memory:
Slim Jims on the ride to Quebec in 1994.

Senior year was a rotation of chocolate donuts
and Twix bars and never finishing a cigarette. 

How to untwine my grandmother 
from the meal she wouldn’t excuse me from the table.

My father’s casseroles in the terra cotta dish:
another grief.

What would I eat if the world was ending? 
I contemplate a mouse the cat is flipping between her paws.

I am always chasing the first peapod of summer,
long after summer has left the building.

At the bottom of my tea, a tidepool 
of honey.