Summer Supper

By Sam Moe

1.
At dinner you ask me the difference between
cherries and rubies, in my stories there are jaws
you want to know why I give teeth away, how
do oysters grow so large they swallow me in
my childhood bed, I don’t know how to talk
about anything anymore. I care about you

the swans have left the pond, algae a ribbon
green as your eyes, runs through the center
of the lake are bundles of mayflies, fences
have been taken down, the trees are cut to
make more fences. I am not a fling or your
darling I’m bad at apologizing, you’re hands

deep in dough, I write my name in countertop
flower, we are not the same. Afternoons there
are red birds, singing and sleeping and then
buttons on your coat are chipping, wind gust
could carry the threads of you away, how
long do we have left, things are uncertain.

2.
Rain floods the lawn, the hound asks for
my flesh, the history forms a handprint, we’re
beneath the maple tree with half-empty bottles
of wine, a blanket printed with crickets, this
isn’t a message, a lie, this is what happens to
me when I lose track, let all the hurting words

and hurting hands get sucked down a tub’s drain
let myself be a little less thorny around you, left
to my own devises I am an alternative to spring
I am cold, I am a match for the moon, did you
know everyone who has loved me has left me,
do you know yet how much time is left of water

before the thunder, but when will the tree grow
back, how do we gather seashells from the side
of the lake, but how did snails get such shining
amber shells, do you have an alternative story
my heart, do you know what will happen when
I turn to skulls and beaks and peat and ash.

3.
Soon we fight for the kingdom. Your sword
is out of hiding, your fondness of amethysts
your hair in a braid, there are mothers here
many mothers, stepmothers, grandmothers
who know which forest rooms are haunted
the mothers know how long it takes to reach

in my chest, they pull forth yarn orbs, wind-up
toys, a plastic raven, a chocolate bunny, they
are warm-handed and cautious, they’re not fond
of erosion. And you love the mothers, I witness
you together in a group, lounging on the side of
the old hill, weeping willow in front of your

eyes, I want to touch the side of your face, my
mother arrives with a treasure chest to dig out
the berries of my heart, the petit filet mignon
lungs, she tells me to cough up yellow-green
ribbons, she tells me I don’t know anything about
eyes or hives or breath and she’s right, I am still

and alive, waiting near the strawberry patches
do you ever cry in the night? Once when I was
young and I couldn’t sleep my mother made me
cream cheese on toast. These days she doesn’t
let me bring cheese in the house. You watch her
dragging empty tote bags out of the lining of my

stomach, embedded inside my body are threats
later you tell me you didn’t know about needles
but what would you have done if you had? And
how would you have done it? And if we knew
each other all those years ago, would you fight me
or let me drown? Before I ask, you disappear into

sycamore cradles, you are off running with flocks
of lambs and horses, dogs and rams, land calcifies
and my skin is rigid. This isn’t another story about
addiction, but it is. You keep asking which, then
whose, and what, and how. I keep telling you gorge
and rocky edge, knife lip, slip, tooth, rope, soap, fear.

4.
the mothers fix my body before dinner. You are
far, at the opposite end of the table arguing about
salt and sugar cubes, pissed off someone is unaware
of your knowledge of blue roots and beached fish
but what’s up with the hope, why can’t I be perfect
I want to talk things through, I want to leave through

a trapped door covered in ivy, I want the boat built
by the mothers, with stacks of comforters and beds
and warm glasses of milk, there is toast with jam and
a rabbit I used to know when I was small. I can’t tell
you what happened with the lost hours. You send me
notes wrapped in cloth napkins, tell me not to be so

ridiculous, but I’m already mutating into something
else, no longer daughter or mother or sun, now I’m
begging as a wolf, the wolf, I am in the stories and
the warnings, the mothers say beware of my teeth
you don’t want to witness the blood, you don’t know
wolves eat honeycombs for snacks, you don’t know

what happened to me, the way that we touch is
changing, turning to healed hand holding wheat,
gently take me behind the ears, please be kind as
the house peels itself apart. I was wrong about the
forests and the waters. It’s chocolate buttons, walnut
cookies, caramel bars, cinnamon in jars, dessert is

too sweet, do you have anything with meat, do you
remember how to save your own life? Things are so
smooth and quiet. My skin is my fur is blown about
by the wind. You arrive after the mothers have gone
and the warnings were plenty, yet you’re here with
a lamp in one hand, my cheesecloth heart in the other.

Sam Moe is the recipient of a 2023 St. Joe Community Foundation Poetry Fellowship from Longleaf Writers Conference. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Whale Road Review, The Indianapolis Review, Sundog Lit, and others. Her poetry book Heart Weeds is out from Alien Buddha Press and her chapbook Grief Birds is forthcoming from Bullshit Lit in April ’23. Her full-length Cicatrizing the Daughters is forthcoming from FlowerSong Press.