Nathan Graziano

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?


We have the crusts from the two slices of wheat toast
the kids ate for breakfast, random driftwood
beached on the shores of a plastic cartoon plate.

We have a picture from Thanksgiving
the year you baked that beautiful golden bird.
Headless, it was unable to admire its tan.

We have a bottle of mid-shelf Chianti.
Since we lost the cork, it breathes like a fat man
on the kitchen counter beside our stack of bills.

We have your lipstick, which lingered on my mouth
from the last kiss we shared before parenthood,
when kissing wasn’t only for foreplay or photographs.




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Nathan Graziano lives in Manchester, New Hampshire with his wife and two children. He is the author of Teaching Metaphors (sunnyoutside, 2007), Not So Profound (Green Bean Press, 2004), Frostbite (GBP, 2002) and seven chapbooks of poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in Rattle, Night Train, Freight Stories, The Coe Review, The Owen Wister Review, and others. His third book of poetry, After the Honeymoon, was published in Fall 2009 by sunnyoutside press and includes the above poem. For more information, visit his website: www.nathangraziano.com.