The Ironing Board
They set him a table
at the ironing board
for holiday dinner.
Knife, fork and napkin
on a silver, foam pad.
No close resemblance at all
to a dining room table.
He is an island set adrift
from family and talk and
seconds on mashed.
It’s a rocky substitute,
curved polygon with
x-crossed legs.
Too tall for comfort
and no room for elbows
even if he dared.
Dessert was the short end
of the watermelon.
“Best part” the family told him.
Now he buys clothes that
never need ironing
and cuts to the heart
of the melon.
Diane Giardi, M.F.A, is an Artist, Arts Educator and Poet, who lives with her husband on the East End of Long Island. She is The Education Director at East End Arts. Her poetry has been published in the Yale Journal of Humanities in Medicine, Long Island Sounds, The Journal of Clinical Nursing, The Endicott Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Nassau Review, Moon Magazine, The Path Magazine, The Wilderness House Literary Review, From The Depths, Ann Arbor Review, Dovetails Publishing and Minerva Press, among others.