Dinnertime Riff (Day 15)

Dinnertime Riff
By Hannah Six

At some point in the day,
he has to slide
his feet back into worn shearling
slippers and steal away
from his ancient, attic-bound desk.
Down two flights of creaking
wood stairs, his wife improvises
a modern, atonal riff, stirring,
chopping, lifting, and dropping
hi-hat lids on pots
of wayward greens and sprouts.
Drifting upward, a blanket,
of caramelizing onions and
salty, crisp-rimmed pork chops
wraps one room, and then the next,
in deep comfort. Low-playing
Beethoven, the foundation
on which tonight's dinner was built,
issues a formal invitation.
Stretching, he yawns and
gratefully accepts,
laptop lid sighs closed
on the orange shock
of a world gone
wrong, a nightmare,
forcing its mastodonic animus
through a fine needle's eye.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six