somewhere we're at the dinner table together



and the scene pans in on your arm stretched
across the dishes, the noise fades in but you are
not lost in the chatter, the camera assumes position
of an all-seeing eye, except it is both you and me and
everyone, the drifting lens lands on my fingers, my shoulder
the bottom of my chin, I'm all a blurred face in the dim party
lights, hair awash with the leaves and the plastic clatter of plates
but you focus in and so do I, because it's me and you and everyone



somewhere we sit together at a dinner table.

I'm sorry, first of all, because
I couldn't save you.
How all I could do was
Stand there,
Listlessly while
You clung to the hems of
My mother's skirt.

How your little sister
Stood between us,
Pretending if for awhile
To have a real home,

And I'm sorry that
All I could've given you
At the time was money
And that I didn't even
Do that because I
Was afraid of getting
***** looks from everyone around me.

So many unsaid things hanging
Between us like
A foul-mouthed cliche.

How in the midst of
All these bodies for sale
I would've paid for you.

How I would have paid
For your company how
I would tell you
How lively your eyes were.

How I would've made your little
Sister laugh and stare
And we'd make stupid faces
At each other all night.

How smooth
Your brown skin was how
Beneath you
Everyone else looked.

How if you had spoken,
God would have heard you.

You are His daughter
Not theirs.
You are His child
Not theirs.

You are His Pride and Joy and
He loves You.

In this loveless, lifeless world
He loves You.

Please believe that
He loves You.

Both of You.

All of us.

I can spend hours
Losing myself in this
Transcendent embrace—
Chest warm and welcoming,
Always understanding.

Father's advice not
In the things he says but
In the curves of His
Brow, contours
Of His smile—quiet,
Present.