for A.B.

Those childhood nights I ate at your table,
where life's mysteries were broken and shared—
I studied the blue willow plates you set each night.

Even during the worst winter,
my fork swept potatoes, gravy, bits of savory meat
and uncovered a story.

Each night I told myself a different tale, cast in the familiar pattern—
there were pagodas, fences, shining waterways
and a boat with a figure searching the horizon.