Two Poems

Dinner Table

Daddy said in some light
you could see words
on the dinner table etched
through schoolwork paper thousands
and thousands of days before
answers, names, symbols
he ran his finger over the wood
in the dinnertime sunlight
remembering being asked, needed
mama put down her silverware
I looked into the brightness
Daddy read. We were all together again



Saw Dog

The saw like a cello cut deep sang
through silvan abdomen, so transformed
it is marine sculpture, human likeness

he laced up his boots, took mine off
pleased, he said don’t forget me. It comes
through like stonefruit juice

pulpy, ripe, pitless
I’m good enough to be prized, trained
full of sugar, empty from the belly

Me and them shared a home
a little too long, mama said
turning off the television

I shouldn’t have on
anything at all the saw dog
said when asked what he could make

In bed, I toy with being
enough or fragrant wood. Trilling
into the well with cedar skin, a sculpted ideal

I want to be made. I have to change
my boyfriend says naked when we need to go
put on clothes. Mama picks up the saw,

does it herself. I reach out
am chipped away at kin
reflection of kin. My center is a nidus

____
Miller Ganovsky lives between Pittsburgh and New York, and has works in Notch and Bruiser magazines.