by Darrell Parry

I sympathize
with the dining room table.
The one that’s too big for the space it occupies.
You have always taken care of it
because you use it everyday,
but it’s not your favorite piece.
It’s not the cozy bed or comfy chair
you look forward to seeing after a hard day at work.
You’re nice to it because it’s necessary, but
you resent it for always being in your way.
You even sometimes think that maybe
it doesn’t do enough to justify its presence.
You curse at it when you knock into it unexpectedly
like its very existence is a burden.
You can’t afford to replace it.
You keep it around because you need it.
And the fact that you need it
is almost more annoying than the table itself.

I sit alone at that table each night
feeling a sense of camaraderie.
Glaring at the room
And the world
around me
hating it for being too small.

Darrell Parry is a writer, artist and event organizer from Easton, Pennsylvania. He founded the monthly Stick Figure Poetry open mic and co-hosts Lehigh Valley Poetry’s Virtual Salon, which meets every Monday night via zoom. His alter ego works in higher education, not a professor, but as one of those reviled peddlers of unaffordable course materials.