The Gravy

The heater in the sedan is taking its time,

so I sit in the dark and I count out the crime

of the porcelain boat and the steam in the air

and the way that we sat in a shared-out despair.

My sister’s thumb brushed the edge of my own

as she handed me salt and a hollowed-out bone.

We stared at the roses on the kitchen wall paper

and watched the day vanish like a snuffed-out taper.

On a stack of the plates in the porcelain sink,

a half-moon of cranberry is starting to shrink.

It’s drying to leather, a dark, sticky red,

like all of the things that we should have just said.