Dinner Time

At the kitchen table Sat still like stone statues – petrified. A sick game of musical chairs Sat waiting for the muted music to play again. Saplings uprooted early; replanted in rows seated in toxic soil – a stunted growth. Wooden faces: no smiles or frowns. Emotions set in stone from eyes set on Medusa’s head. The slim cracks in plates a widening schism Where we sit stranded on one side. An earthquake leaving never ending ripples in the water. A word or deed, seen or heard. On repeat. Chairs with no more legs to stand on. Everything and everyone on edge; Braced to face a world turned upside down. Sliding plates and tilted tables; fallen trees and twisted broccoli. A seismic shift from foreboding calm to unnatural disaster. With shattered glass come shattered dreams Shards bursting imaginary balloons of hope – slivers of normalcy. Promises smashed against the hard cold walls; Fragmented, strewn and lost forever. Reflections in the broken glass show broken faces – A blackened eye, a frown mistaken for a smile. Sliced lips hiding wobbly teeth; a stern and stoic jigsawed face. Hiding years and months and days and lifetimes. Ketchup splattered walls dripping fast past congealed blood From last week, last year. Running parallel to tears on faces. Races with no prizes for the winner once the finish line is crossed. Blunt knives, sharp tongues. In a colour red To go with black and blue and green and carrots, beets and peas. Sealed lips, bitten tongues. Tension cut like a rusty knife Through sweetest bread. Through gullet, throat or neck. Heart and stomach; guts and innards without the glory. Sweet tooth lying bloodied at the head of the table. Unseated from its usual place. Yet no crown in sight. No coronation. A King without kith or kin. No heart; just jacks and jokers Pummelled hard with clubs and spades. With withered spoon for humble pie. A cry for just desserts fit for a King: The final serving is a bag of frozen peas Applied to faces with a frozen look - chiselled art with eyes still warm. Tears like ice – shaped like shiny diamonds. Sat on tired cheeks – Semi-permanent. Sure to thaw well before the King is overthrown.