The kitchen table
In the house where I grew up
Was wooden, cold and stained
Came apart in the middle
Like so many ruined meals
And other realities hard to digest
Silences which say more than words can say
Furtive glances the only I love you
Support incomplete, bond left unspoken
When we left the house where I grew up
The kitchen table stayed behind
But the dining room table came with us
A place to spend and fear the holidays
An anchor to hold us to our past
When we did not know how to be a family
Epic
My feet
Set squarely in
The present
My eyes
Firmly focused on
The future
The narrow way
Seems dangerous and hard
Wrought with strife
And lonely
But, when not absorbed in
Seeming circumstances
Or caught up in
wavering from
Side
to
side
It merely becomes
The surest, shortest distance
Between two points
The past has passed
The present
Is
But a fleeting gift
I will hold out for
The future
And trust in
What it brings
Love me I'm worthy.
Bionote
Pat Connors first chapbook, Scarborough Songs, was published by Lyricalmyrical Press in 2013, and charted on the Toronto Poetry Map. Part-Time Contemplative, his second chapbook with Lyricalmyrical, was released in 2016. He is a manager for the Toronto chapter of 100,000 Poets for Change.
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