John Nieves: “Table for One, Party of Two”
TABLE FOR ONE, PARTY OF TWO
Today is remember-you-on-purpose day, an intermittent
holiday I invented to prevent myself from staring
into your empty clothing, imagining I could breath
your body back in place. Today, I walk the path we used
to for lunch. Any other day, I walk the extra two blocks
to not. But today, I will get our usual table and if our favorite
server asks about you, I will tell the truth. I will tell the truth
and still get a fresh roll and still drink my tea. I will not
pretend you are drinking it with me, but I will recite
by heart every word you said the last time you did.
John Nieves has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: Cincinnati Review, Pleiades, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, Greensboro Review and Copper Nickel. His first book, Curio, won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize and came out in 2014. Nieves is an Assistant Professor of English at Salisbury University.