Sher A. Schwartz

Small Table in Evening Dusk

‌–after Henri Le Sidaner’s oil on canvas (1921)

the small, round table set
with two possibilities

teacups, thin porcelain, a gold
lidded teapot, raspberry tarts

second possibility two raffia-wrapped
wine bottles, wine flutes, and

crusty rolls pushed against
little table’s edge

the small blue table
silver pitcher beaded in sweat

could have served either possibility
two friends or two lovers

yet the blue raspberry tarts were
pecked over by sparrows

teacups unstained
crystal flutes clean

wine bottles uncorked but stoppered
ripe camellias dangling

their branches reaching over
the canal––the ladder-backed

chairs awaiting bodies other
than their own––twilight

blue spindrift coats everything

Sher A. Schwartz is a retired University of Alaska Southeast-Ketchikan Assistant Professor of Humanities living on a two-hundred-acre historic farm in eastern Oregon. She is currently working on a chapbook, plays old-time fiddle music, plants gardens for pollinators, and trains bird dogs.