My son studies me with a look
normally reserved for strangers.

I turn to the eggs for answers.
They flutter as they sizzle.
Coffee, of course, steeps
in the nervous silence.

My daughter is waiting for it.
She clings to my wife’s knee
as though the intruder is among us,
here to steal the silverware.

Where are the spoons?

I look through the drawer where we keep them.
Where they should be, beneath the sugar bowl.
But the spoons moved many years ago.
My elbow knocks the pot from the counter

and blackness seeps across the terra cotta.
Between my toes, the burning liquid steams.
My family has learned to leave the room.