Do You Wanna Grab Dinner?
Kaelyn Hvidsten
We could finish 2001 and not talk
through swollen throats, built and
broken by biting back the acrid acid
of untouched words
on my secondhand tongue
Can I call you in a bit?
And stuff your laugh in my mouth
to deaden my father’s silence
and worry what you’re getting out of this
is barely more preservable
I haven’t tired of the chisel
between my teeth
or tried to stop the wood
from charring, splintering into
“would I miss you?”
The chips make good kindling
for the altar I’m always throwing myself
over instead of my old oak bed –
maybe my father’s silence was a sign
maybe it’s not a wall but a monument
I promise I’ll stand defiantly distant
while I bite the torches and pretend
our monolith’s made of terminal shadows
instead of living, oaken memory – begotten by
beds shoved into the same corner of different rooms
So, dinner?
The roads are gross
but I’ll be careful.
See you in 10