Serving Her

Her eyes shift from oven to stove,
pearl earrings rattling like corn kernels ready to pop.
She bastes flanks of salmon in garlic and herbs,
wraps them in fig leaves and sets the timer.
Her husband pulls a pill box from the dining room cabinet.

Between mouthfuls of oil fattened fish,
biscuits shaped and buttered in the palms of her hands,
he reaches over and touches her knee, nodding
towards a blood pressure tablet, the thin blue diamond he's set by her plate,
which she takes with a spoonful of mashed potatoes he has salted, knowing
she would find them too bland.

Ashley Maser is currently pursuing an English degree from Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. She has previously interned with the Dos Passos Review and her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Foundling Review, Writers' Bloc, Word Riot, Midwest Literary Magazine, INCITE, Foliate Oak, and The Driftwood Review.