Table for One

He imagines she’s boiling water for tea, he
just sitting down to a Guinness and ribs.
He remembers her kettle doesn’t whistle or sing
as she’s been known to, just risks boiling over–
it’s like her, he muses, to have a kettle like that,
to think her singing strength enough.
The beer obligingly beads the frost off the glass
and his ribs have cooled just enough for handling. . .
The ribs lie so willingly on the plate, he can’t
bring himself to address them till he’s tried
to bend one, just to feel some resistance, as God did,
with Eve–now those were ribs with a spine!
She’s boiling water, he, just sitting–each, he surmises,
lonely as an apple left to winter over on the branch.

April Ossmann