Emiliano Gomez

Una Mesa

a table says to its stool-kids “there once
was family roaring round a casserole
with timeless stories made for spit-take laughs
water or wine it didn’t matter they
would argue just to hear each other talk
that’s how sweet their voices were to them
until one day

                         the food arrived and no
one spoke and no one knew why no one spoke

each one had compact dirt inside their hand
those hands once held and hummed and framed photos
their eyes collected dust oases turned to sand
and never more did family speak” the kiddos
tucked in with table underneath the cloth
which felt like mother’s goodnight kisses
                                                                     soft.

Emiliano Gomez graduated UCLA where he completed an English Department honors thesis under the direction of Brian Kim Stefans. He was born in rural northern California. He has been recently published by Indolent Books, The Breakbread, ICE Colony. He is currently working on a pastiche collection which includes objectivism, sonnets, prose, and tanka.