Pecan Pie
Sitting at a bare table
In a sunny kitchen
While the weather contradicts everything.
I’m crying in my pecan pie
While I taste you in every bite
As the blue-haired women murmur appropriate nothings
In the parlor
And run their slightly disapproving white-gloved fingertips
Along the tops of the picture frames on the mantel.
All I want to do is scream
But all I do is sit there smelling your cooking
While I eat the last pie you baked for me.
I can almost hear the shuffle of your bedroom slippers
On the cracked linoleum,
Almost taste your pork chops and gravy
While I try to be nice
And not notice them
eyeballing your grandaddy’s clock on the mantel.
