Recently in a Restaurant

I overheard a chair and table talking.

The chair was bemoaning how she bore

the brunt of all the labour:

endured the weight of men and women

leaning backwards, rocking forwards,

putting pressure on her back and legs,

scuffing her dainty feet.

The table observed that he was bigger, stronger,

yet didn’t have to carry weight at all,

merely accessories to add to his good looks—

silver, glassware, crisp laundered napkins.

Proprietor and patrons accorded him respect,

a presence of importance in the centre

of a circle of chairs.

Forget monogamy, he said,

unless you wished to be a desk,

alone in an office with a single chair—

romantic for a while but very dull

compared with how he lived,

surrounded by four females (sometimes six)

in an atmosphere of fun and celebration.

He was crucial to the restaurant’s ambiance

and still in the prime of life.

Unlike the chair (he pointed out politely)

whose joints were too worn out to be repaired,

her bloom of youth and sense of dress long-gone,

while he feared little from fashion changes,

wondered only briefly about his end.

Before the chair could rally a response,

he rattled a glass and proposed three toasts—

polygamy, longevity, himself.

Liz McQuilkin