Spoon, or A convenient place setting

by Kent Shaw

We were a dinner once by lamplight or bone china and standing at the table
we were a love a room with doors painted onto the plaster

ceilings that multiply over our heads we took shape
as a sky remains ominous pressing our hands into the earth and our bodies into an angle of consent

we were particular and penetrating and impossible
slaves pressed into the earth

so we underneath the earth
we were a dinner once hungry & speculative at evening

we thought the hills would rise waves on an uneven ocean
and crashing

that was prophecy that was grackles perched at the curb a cathedral in ruins
we were a dinner once

uncomplicated by what happened outside and the traffic moving towards the city a perspective
overshadowed by evening we were a dinner once we were an angle of consent

 

Kent Shaw’s first book, Calenture, won the 2007 Tampa Review Prize. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Third Coast, The Literary Review, The Greensboro Review, and other journals. He is a PhD student in the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program. (5/2008)