Drop Leaf Table
top marred, a loose hinge, scuffed legs,
oak stained honey brown and lacquered
to shine, a deep grain like old rivers
that long ago carved their way into clay
how a path lays down in the woods,
meandering and steady.
Its sides down, the plank in the middle
is a footbridge, though what crosses
are hands and conversation where we meet
leafless under a new sky,
offering fresh figs to each other. Open,
it’s oval, more the shape of a man-made lake
than the moon that redefines its shape:
full, crescent, waning as if to make us pine
to be different, while a lake’s edge seeps
into the earth quietly but collects and gets deeper
where it’s contained, moving always from the center
of itself.