It's Still Life

Between the Salt and Pepper

We used to wave them off at stations.
Kisses pressed into collars,
wars with foreign names
dissolving into newsprint.

Some came home.

Some didn’t.

Distance
was a mercy then.

Now the table is laid.

Salt.
Pepper.
A glass of water
holding the small reflection
of a child’s face.

The television speaks.

Bombs fall.

A street we have never walked
burns between the plates.

A mother runs through dust
no wider
than the space
between fork and knife.

After what we have seen,
we can never again
be who we were.
Nor should we.

The walls have thinned.

The world has entered
by light and wire
and sits among us now —

breathing
between the salt and pepper,

breathing
in the quiet

of the room

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Written for Violet’s Phraseology, including the phrase “After what we have seen, we can never again be who we were.”― Gemma Liviero, Pastel Orphans. Some images created with Midjourney; all writing is authentically my own original work.©Misky 2006-2026.