Bridget Gage-Dixon
Communion
Aunt Dorothy’s back twists with time,
Shoulders rise into a hump as she lifts
Faux fruit from a warping wooden bowl,
Shines plastic apple, orange, each tiny grape
To an acceptable shine.
She says the table is the heart-
the center of the home,
through which everything must flow
as she turns to clear away the mismatched plates.
One red, one blue, one yellow,
each a remnant of a long lost set.
Dish by dish they chipped, shattered, split
until all that is lift is a cupboard
filled with stubborn survivors.
She says a family must eat together always.
this is where people say the things
they thought they wouldn’t
where children let you into their lives.
Watching her work her misshapen fingers,
form the wash towel to a blade she runs
into each crevice of a plastic pear,
I begin to hear her secrets
they slide from her lips
coil themselves into my ear.
In the small silences in her speech,
the trust between us solidifies.
Communion
Aunt Dorothy’s back twists with time,
Shoulders rise into a hump as she lifts
Faux fruit from a warping wooden bowl,
Shines plastic apple, orange, each tiny grape
To an acceptable shine.
She says the table is the heart-
the center of the home,
through which everything must flow
as she turns to clear away the mismatched plates.
One red, one blue, one yellow,
each a remnant of a long lost set.
Dish by dish they chipped, shattered, split
until all that is lift is a cupboard
filled with stubborn survivors.
She says a family must eat together always.
this is where people say the things
they thought they wouldn’t
where children let you into their lives.
Watching her work her misshapen fingers,
form the wash towel to a blade she runs
into each crevice of a plastic pear,
I begin to hear her secrets
they slide from her lips
coil themselves into my ear.
In the small silences in her speech,
the trust between us solidifies.
Bridget Gage-Dixon has had works published in Cortland Review, Poet Lore, New York Quarterly as well as several other journals. She writes to put into words the world as she experiences it, to challenge herself to see the world in new way, and, most importantly, because she has no real choice.