At Table Poem by Marjorie Welish

At Table



Of being suitable
or to the right of the fold,
extrapolated
like this, like that intelligibility
of plate fettered to table, with program,
academe in hand, and denoted forks speaking with us
transitorily . . .
'Scattered totalities,'
live knife
put to glass and the future of us in words
for which a reasonable defense might be given.

To the right of the implied dish, place emphasis:
come and attempt

a fine thing:
the drift of place setting iterated as a landmark
of the new school
attaining to non-aligned subject-object relationships.

You ask for a pledge
or sleds to barter for intensities, as plates being adjacent
bestow similacra in the manner of 'winged words.'

Of winged words and dwindling likeness, you are saying:
the pen is on the table;
come and attempt

'a sentence of the glass-on-knife-on-dish variety.'

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