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I Still Have a Penchant for Fancy Forks

At the ‘Writing from the Heart’ workshop I recently attended, we were given 20 minutes and a prompt.

One of them was “Dinner at our house was…”  Here’s what came out.

Dinner at our house was…

at the big round table
in the small dining room
golden colored, thick wood
housed within yellow, textured wallpaper

flatware silver
napkins paper
place mats thick and rubber

maybe we ate something like meatloaf
the red ketchup juicer in the middle
a little pile of Shaklee vitamins
in the corner of our place setting

Mom preferred the nonfat milk
a serving of thin, watery, bluish white
filling glasses that rarely emptied

somehow one fork – different from the rest
had made its way into our silverware drawer
with intricate designs embellished on the metal
Deemed “the fancy fork”
my brother, sister and I would call dibs
“I get the fancy fork!”

Dad – I don’t recall him much at mealtime
there are flashes of a coffee table set for one
late night and we are in pajamas
mom serving him in front of the television
us heading on towards bed

And Mom,
when did she eat?
always moving in the kitchen

These were the early years
before 11
in the old house tucked inside the orange grove
before divorce
before we moved to town

By high school, in the suburbs
Mom would say,
“Let’s eat together, it’s important”
but by then there were friends to see
we’d been snacking after school
cheese quesadillas
cinnamon toast crunch cereal
bowls of ice cream with Magic Shell

Mom working
three teenagers at home
just ignoring the crock pot with a chicken
set to warm

courtesy Kevin Dooley
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 3 Comments

Unearthing

at 3:30am you wake
with a feverish (but sleeping) child beside you
tell yourself to go back to sleep
but The List and all it’s have-to’s seep in to rouse you
before eyelids have their chance to shut it out

by 4 you give up fighting
brew coffee
grab your journal and a pencil
archeological tools for a delicate excavation
select teardrops have been falling
you don’t know why

all of these buried artifacts, so fragile
the slightest brush
a breeze
can blow dust to reveal some treasure
an aged clue

you uncover moments
like the day your dad pulled away in an empty station wagon
the note your seventh grade boyfriend gave you, saying he wanted to break up
the sound of the screen door closing when the pregnancy test strip turned pink
that dashing gentleman’s voice conceding, “Hon, raising a child is exhausting.”

you turn these shards over in your hands
piece together how they set a scene
look at the new development around you
wonder what to do with these old remnants

you know sometimes
it looks like love leaves

just when the dig seems it may reveal some answers
your feverish child stirs and needs you

he’s warm and weary but he’ll be OK
this flesh of his
the evidence beside you
that once you believed
that love was all that mattered
that it would be enough to stay

it’s easy at the excavation site
to see the broken pieces
scattering proof that you were wrong
life can’t be built on love alone

but as the sun begins to rise
and the journal needs to be shelved
that List is inching closer to the fore
you can’t help but put some hope into this day
that somehow
there could be a bridge
between the ancient history of lessons learned
and the evolution of new buildings in the making

that love lives in the foundation
it can infuse architectural plans
course through the hands
some hands
whose hands?
these hands
that are willing to stay and build it

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Out of the Mouths of Babes

It’s night.

Jeb and I are at the outdoor shower, where he soaps under the stars.  He doesn’t like to bathe alone in the dark and I keep him company while words fall from his mouth as yarn unraveling.  It’s an end-of-the-day discourse that peaks at shower time and then falls with a thud on his pillow after putting on his pajamas.

As he rinses and recites, frogs rest and listen in the moss and fern shadows, just out of sight.

Jeb’s at the crescendo.  Stories and descriptions of the day’s events come out as run-on sentences.  A litany of Lego guy trading on the playground, a scene from a Bruce Lee movie he saw with his dad, and a new knock-knock joke.

“Knock knock”

“Who’s there?”

“A door.”

“A door who?”

“Adore me!”

“I do adore you.  That’s a good one…ok, Jeb, get all of the shampoo out of your hair and come on out.”

I herd him toward bed as he finalizes his roll.  The last thoughts of his head, draining.

“Mom, when are you going to get a boyfriend?”

Stars flicker.  The breeze pauses.  Frogs freeze.