Poetry

Navigating the Dinner Table

By Sophia Fafard

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Sitting down at the table, waiting for food

Everyone is asking, “how’s school?”

Rough, I think, but know not to say,

Instead, I smile and pretend it’s okay.

Grandpa talks about NHL hockey,

Grandma with the small-town names,

I don’t know these people or this life,

Yet here I am, cutting the roast with their knife.

There’s the awkward silence with the cousins,

Strangers to each other for what—two years?

I must have forgotten.

Uncle makes fun of my brother’s shirt,

Aunt sits in mere existence.

Two different worlds united

Under one house, though it is painful,

Here is where I learned,

To navigate the dinner table.

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*Published in Mystician 86.4*

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