Poetry
Jennifer Poteet
Kitchen Table: Still LifeChrome table lighter. Empty ashtray. White rose slumped over the red vase. Two butter knives. Yellow china plate dusted with brown crumbs. Half (okay, a third) of a bottle of Cotes-du-Rhone. Your uncapped whiskey. Tums and white-out. A vacant chair, the remote control. No you, No bowl of fruit. Gas, Food, Longing1 That main artery hyphenated white drives 'em through all states. Crude-oil coffee can be fuel; the promise of cruller sugar awaits at every roadstop. And there's tolls, reasons to seek change, endless no-doze miles, hundreds of gallons pumped, exhaust, late-night radio, the drone, the drone, the drop-off zone. The weight of the load causes wind drag on the body. Open the window. 2 The driver does 90 on the highway. He recalls another life on a different map, a wife who begged to bear his children. There's something that allures a man about an existence complete with exits, and knowing where things must end up. His foot on the gas, hands at ten and three, a has-been husband sees the cherry tree and the familiar overpass. Sometimes at daybreak catchy jingles make sense; billboards talk truth, and the idea of a woman waiting up with a child crying for his Daddy makes him almost take a u-turn. Jennifer Poteet, 36, lives in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. She works by day in Manhattan in the Cable TV industry. When not writing, reading or listening to poetry, you can usually find her scouring flea markets for Mexican religious artifacts and Scandanavian furniture. She is also a clothes horse. She has had her poetry appear in Salonika, stirring and The Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks. |