poem
Volume 30, Number 2

thursday night dinner

and we three not in exams 
cut up eggplant to place 
in oiled pans, stir spices
into milk and crush                      
garlic under our palms 
we are women who know 
what it is to give and so
we touch one another 
 
and so the fourth comes 
home tired and ready to be
shown love—she kisses 
one of us as though she has
done it a thousand times before
and she has—I do not blink 
when the women embrace
I just separate the bell 
peppers from themselves 
 
we eat on the small table in
what used to be a ballroom
at least, that is what I think
it must be—the house an old 
mansion repurposed for more
menial needs—the needs of 
women who must carve out 
a space for themselves in the world
of light the lamp has thrown


—Addison Kamb