New Poetry by Nancy Machlis Rechtman

Mastication and Muzak

We sit across from each other

Under the glaring fluorescent light

At the glass-topped wrought-iron kitchen table

With the black, metal coils of the upright chair

Snaking into my back like a warning

If I make any attempt to lean back

And breathe.

After repositioning the ceramic bowl with the purple silk flowers

With their blotched, angry bruises

Onto the grey granite countertop behind the table

There is now a place for the handcrafted black walnut salad bowl

Filled with verdant leafiness

And incongruous bursts of juicy cherry tomatoes

Drizzled with earthy brown balsamic vinaigrette.

The cheerful palette is misleading

Since it suggests signs of life

And not the life support

That is more accurately represented

By this tableau

Especially by the plate across the table

With its barely cooked animal carcass

Masquerading as sustenance,

And I can barely swallow.

In the next room

Innocuous instrumentals fill the empty spaces

That words once inhabited

And I no longer wonder how it happened

Or when it happened

Because no timer was set

That signaled the end of it all.

But echoes of the fury

And pain

That once flooded the halls

And every room of the house

Like raging rivers

And the jolts of slamming doors

That were earthquakes

Still remain

But they have long been eroded

Into the numbing trickle of mastication

And Muzak.

- © Nancy Machlis Rechtman 2022

Nancy Machlis Rechtman has had poetry and short stories published in Paper Dragon, The Bluebird Word, Quail Bell, The Bluebird Word, Goat’s Milk, The Writing Disorder, Discretionary Love, and more. She wrote freelance Lifestyle stories for a local newspaper, and she was the copy editor for another paper She writes a blog called Inanities at https://nancywriteon.wordpress.com.