PAD DAY 23 Empty Chairs Around White Linen

Empty chairs around white linen

We used to pick up Bubby
Drive into city traffic
And at evening’s end
Drive back through city
Traffic she with the drumstick
She loved in her bag returned
Home to sleep in her insisted
Own bed
Leaving behind a ceramic clown
For cotton balls a gaudy Statue of
Liberty pin or like gifted treasures

We used to have my father debonair
Hair thick a wave dipping close grazing
Left eye usually winking at one of
The girls or Bubby

We used to wait for Mother platinum
hair sparkling laughing and drawing a
deck of cards from a good leather bag
that never left her lap for any takers
from turkey coma’d marks

We used to have my mother long fingered
pulling at the turkey  -  cigarette in her mouth
dangling surreptitious ashes that never fell

We used to have controlled chaos
Stories spilling onto into one another
As the inevitable child dripped something
Stainful onto the white tablecloth
Fresh and forgiven then
Faded and storied the next
We used to have -
Now we remember
And give thanks
with a moist eye
Reading the faint forever
Past on the white linen of today  

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate and to those for whom this is simply November 24th thankfulness really does not actually require any particular signifying holiday...