Nothing Required

She was at the stove. Dish towel

over one shoulder. Not

turning around.

I'd been at the table for —

I don't know. Forty minutes, maybe.

The pendant lamp

threw its circle onto the wood.

I hadn't said much.

She hadn't asked me to.

At some point I noticed

I was breathing at a regular rate.

That my face wasn't doing anything

deliberate. That I wasn't

arranging it.

I've been in rooms all week

where I had to be something.

Even rooms where the something

was fine, or holding together, or fine.

Here I was just

at the table.

The yellow circle on the wood.

The smell of whatever she was making.

The sound of the spoon.

She didn't turn around.

I didn't need her to.

I sat with the strangeness of it —

not relief, exactly.

More like the absence

of what relief is the other side of.

The place on the palm

after you set something down.

The lamp. The wood.

Her back. The dish towel.

I don't know what to call it.

I've been trying since Thursday.

Something about not being required

to be anything.

Not even grateful.

Not even

present in the deliberate way.

Just in the kitchen.

Just there.