I cooked all afternoon and set the table for eight. Wanted to talk to you, thought of you making sandwiches and smiling at strangers in their lunch meetings. When my guests finally arrive, that is when you call. Pouring the steaming fusilli into my grandmother's strainer, scorching my wrists, you need to tell me something now, I need to wait a second, dinner won't get cold. You confess, you have ignored your superego and I was right. I think, the salad still needs dressing and a spritz of black pepper and my garlic bread is probably burning. Darling, I say, can we talk about this later? I'm just about to sit down to dinner and this deserves my full attention. You are discouraged but return to psychoanalytic theory. 'Your mother would be proud' a friend says when plates are empty and wiped clean with warm bread, when people are leaning back only to lean forward again once dessert is exposed, and later, when you were too absorbed to have that conversation, we sat in silence, you studying, your confession somehow understood with time. I wrote a poem that I will read to you in November.

Jessica Colley is a northern New Jersey native and grew up with the NYC theater, art and poetry scene saturating her weekends. Currently a freelance travel writer dividing time between Europe and the tri-state area, Jessica looks back fondly at a summer spent studying poetry at the New School.

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Keywords : Food, Love, Family

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