Palatable Conversations at Night
We,
with the geometry and evening
balance of our midcentury hands—gently
lower the cloche over the day between us. It is a
nightly ritual, gravity-driven, habit built over time, the glass
encasement marred by scars, and etched with near misses and
necessary compromises. Wonder, so many watch television at night.
Kitchen, near day's end, is the stage for our theatrics, still. Air thick with
the leftover residue of last Tuesday's scorching argument. You, a curator of moments, gather the burnt-up bits—stashing away the evaporated passion, a vanishing act of expiration, of measured moves. The charry air becomes clear, in your reconciliation of memories, each crumb meticulously stored in the up-turned folds of your apron; emptiness of your hollow apologies leaving barely any room,
like
this
room.
I, the confessor of too many honesties, carry the weight,
of your name, in vain, in vow, and in vino. Everything spilled
forth, laid obesely bare on the altar of pragmatism. Evening air
saturated with palatable confessions, invidious revelations, each night creates constant courses filled with serving upon relentless serving of burdens of truths, neither of us wants to swallow. Archivists of these vacant instants, overfilled platters of reconciled destinies, we keep the pledges we intoned in the chapel of sincerity, their headstrong mantras resonating with the gods of practicality. In the end, the bitter-sweet dessert of marriage is plated, seasoned
with the complexities of shared history,
leaving the aftertaste of our combined lives lingering on my tongue.
Copyright ©
Jaymee Thomas
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