Listen to Laurie Blauner reading this poem. There is silence in the restaurant. Although silverware unleashes itself against plates. Waiters continue their panicked dance, even patrons are moving their defenseless lips. A marigold petal stops falling,
halts its flirting with thin air. I take a deep breath,
distinguishing fish, a little butter, wine, a candle’s
slow burn. He resembled shadows left by light
across our pre-war furniture, disorganized, re-
arranged, hardly there. I’d said I do to a veil.
No more to the lines edging my face. Perhaps we began
with forgetting, then remembered. Perhaps our lives
drifted like overheard casual conversations. I’m done
with this salty soup. She said what? Sometimes
we are too alone. Did you leave him? my friend asks.
There is no sound. Until a woman whispers to her companion
they’re trying to pass these plates off as real china.
