For Sale

I 'm selling our table and chairs.

We had bought it before we'd decided we might get married,
back when we both had big hair.
I never understood when I was young how people could obsess over objects like furniture.
But I guess I'm guilty now, all these light years away.

I realize I've kept the little blondewood table,
with its side props that bang into your knees
and force you toward each quarter of the table instead of each half,
this annoying little wonderful symbol of a hope that didn't come to fruition,
this awkward little holdout of my stubbornness,
all this time.

You got up and excused yourself, and
I've been through so many hopes with others since,
and you've been through two yourself,
and still I could not part with it.

We'd picked it out before Christmas,
and I remember looking at the ornaments and thinking of our future trees.

But everything's so different now.
I've gone all lumpy and you've less hair, and here we still are.
We still share our tugs and pulls.
Our meteorite existence, plummeting past everything,
made me keep you,
molten down into priceless cinder
and this table, part of that.
This cramped little thing.
We still mingle conversations, dust, hopes that are different.,

And I realize with a breath
That you and I have tables bigger now than we ever would have then.
Daily we might have just collided, flower vases tossed to smash.

This way our family, our square, is bigger.
We added a few places. And now a new little one.
So you see, ...

It's got to go, and so
I'm selling our table.
This table is just too small for us anymore.
We'd need a mesa the size of the state of New Mexico now.
You old star.