The Chair We Didn't Name

His chair was still there.

Just pushed back from the table,

angled slightly, like someone had stood up

to get something from the kitchen

and hadn't come back yet.

No plate.

Nobody said no plate.

Nobody said anything.

My aunt asked if anyone wanted more stuffing.

My mother said the rolls came out good this year.

Someone passed the cranberry sauce

directly across the space where he used to sit,

arm reaching over the absence

the way you step over a crack in the sidewalk

without looking down.

I looked down.

Forty-five minutes of the main course.

I counted the number of times

someone almost said his name —

the throat-clear that went nowhere,

the sentence that started with "remem—"

and became a comment about the weather.

The chair just sat there

at its slight angle,

trying not to make a big deal of it.