Prose Poem · Family
The Kitchen at Night
The house has gone to sleep around me and the kitchen keeps its one small light.
The refrigerator hums the way it has hummed through every house I have ever lived in.
My mother stood here, and her mother, each of them alone with the late hour and the quiet.
I pour the glass of water I came down for and do not drink it; I just hold the cold of it.
This is the hour the house belongs to no one, and so, briefly, it belongs to me.
Original poem © QuillOak — free for personal use.
“The Kitchen at Night” by The QuillOak Editors — quilloak.com/poems/the-kitchen-at-night-prose-poem
Keep reading
The Quiet Work
The QuillOak Editors
Nobody hands out medalsfor the quiet work —the found shoe, the cooled fever,
9 lines · free verse
Steady
The QuillOak Editors
You taught me knots and engine sounds,and how to lose at chess with grace,but mostly, without saying so,
8 lines · free verse
Bake Until Done
The QuillOak Editors
The recipe says "bake until done,"because you never measured,you just knew —
9 lines · free verse