Sunday summer dinner
on the deck

the air tastes like warm bread rising and
my lover’s brown-pink lower lip.

We sit under an ever shifting
evening sky whose wide pale skin stretches in a pause,
before bursting into a ruby-stained sunset.

The crows – with flight that resembles large, black hardbound books beating their covers with graceless effort –
make their scheduled Westward passage.

(And as such rituals demand, someone remarks on the murder.)

Sunday summer dinner
on the deck

everything is vibrating in a balance of sameness and purpose.
It’s all a prayer of sorts

over some food, a table, our family, and this time.

So now we can see one another
in the twilight,
laughing with stories and the pleasure of hunger about to be met,

And take nourishment
from a life that is ripe with belonging.

© Martha Lee Phelps