Empty Cupboard

1.

After years of greedy feasting
without regard to the other guests
at the table he has set

the round belly
of man of the house
is suddenly empty.

There is nothing left
to pick from my bones
and to break the whiteness open
and suck the marrow
in front of my sunken cheeks
and hungry eyes
would be too cruel
even for his unsatisfied appetites
and demands for elegant sauces
and choicest morsels
he could not afford.

Like an angry child
he lowers his fist to the table
chanting
obnoxious pleas
for love.

Old Mother Hubbard
has come to live
in my skin
and stares silently
back at the bloated face
that must learn the lessons
of moderation
and how to fend
for himself.

2.

What I have made of this life
is not mine.
It is the borrowed sugar
of my neighbor.
I cannot serve her
these pies and preserves
made of the fruits
stolen from her trees—
bruised by the fall.

I cannot blame her for leaving
the flesh to ripen
and gather heat and light
of the summer,

and yet, the idea of wasting
a beautiful harvest
was too much for me
to resist.

The bounty offered
a temptation
I gathered
into my finest baskets
to deliver
to a well-appointed kitchen,

ready to prepare
the illusion
of goodness
of the finest kind.

3.

It is time for me to walk away
from the table set for the woman

I am no longer.

These plates and silver
were never mine

and the furnishings
reluctant hand-me-downs
from the ancestors
who slept in single beds.

I am empty
in this unhappy place
and have almost forgotten
the sound of my own
uninhibited laughter
under the weight
of your desire.

Into the traveling pack
of my own light
I have placed
a cup for wine or water,
a knife for cutting cheese and bread,
and a shallow blue bowl
for soup and fresh fruit
on which I will dine gratefully
and in the company of grace.