The family rarely gets together
oceans apart
email and skype are there
but touch and embrace
are not
the family meal
remembrance and folly
and joy and bitterness
at new partings to come
gelled over, smoothed with wine
the mother asserts her role
the desert a trifle
memories of tastes past
remembered again
before the door opens and shuts
another goodbye and for how long
the question hangs
the answers now are too late for tomorrow
and so to bed