A Father is a Table
Karoline Schaufler
She is 23, your daughter,
and takes the trash out barefoot.
Then comes in and knows where all the dishes go.
You know she is
girl-daughter
not girl-son
or boy-daughter,
daughter of blood
and talus.
Girl of bacon in the morning with the largest on the left.
Eaten into yourself.
Ceramic-patronage-lineage-razor’s edge.
Sometimes, out of the corner of your father-sight,
there’s an egress where her eyes should be.
Glass to the south with a lemon wedge.
Sometimes, with the back of your father-hand,
you see her second-course-elbows on the table.
Daughter who juggles oranges in the kitchen.
Then reads over your shoulder and knows where all the hyphens go.
A bite taken out of you.
Mawful of marrow, and rain-wine to wash it down.
From your seat at the head of the table,
she fits in a mug.
But, empty daughter,
full daughter.
Earthenware daughter
with an esophagus where a vain should be,
sucking cytosine in heartbeat patterns.
Knows where the pepper shaker goes. Serves salted verve. Retrieves the bins in barer feet.
To you, final-course father,
holding dessert at bay with double-helix etiquette.
Pedigree-progeny-empty tureen, less than a dram of me.
Sometimes, from the depths of your father-soul,
she, who can name a citrus fruit by its skin
would exile a teakettle for minor offences,
is hollowware.
Still, sliced-vegetable-mandible,
ball-and-socket-joint-baby girl.
Ossein-post-zest-pith,
who, somewhere along the line, came from you.
Karoline Schaufler is a Pacific Northwest writer from Bellingham, Washington. She is a recent graduate from the MA English program at Western Washington University and now teaches English. Her work has appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Funicular Magazine, and 805.