At this uncleared table, I can speak with my mouth full and
spew crumbs of cornbread
and lick the honey right off my fingers.

Dinner is
what I’d imagine
conversing with a school of piranhas must be like,
famished and frenzy-ing.
All churned up in bubblin’ foam and
room-filling hand gestures,
coarse and crude and vulgar-like.
Stealing that last bit of
tender flesh from another fish’s mouth,
followed by a few
smug chews
and a gulping swallow.

Pinballing
on the recollection of some ridiculous
grade-school phase –
the year that Heath paraded around town
on his goodwill bike,
a sneaker-stomped plastic water bottle
tightly tucked between the ribbed tire
and its rusted cover,
to make it sound like
a rugged harley davidson
was pulling up
to our cookie-cutter condo.

Most of these stories are consumed
at the subject’s expense,
a pointed poke at one’s pride
to keep us all humble and even, I suppose.

Chubby baby brother,

perched in his

lofty highchair,
interrupts this routined ribbing to
chime in his yelled-out babbles
before deliberately spilling the
quarter-full
blue ikea bowl of chili
on his stained platter
and smacking it
into pinhead splatters
on the textured wall beside him.

The stretch of silence afterwards
calls chili night to a close,
and the seven of us
stretch and yawn
and go our separate ways for the evening.

We leave the chili pot to crust ‘til morning.

Phoebe Ison

Biography: I’m a multimedia artist, though I specialize in creating stained glass art.

I took a stained glass class through a local rec center in the winter of 2020 and bought my own supplies and started creating commissioned pieces out of my makeshift home studio. I was awarded the Sterling Scholar Scholarship in business for my small stained glass business known as The Underground Cathedral.

I currently sell my pieces on my instagram account, and have been experimenting with different styles, concepts and techniques in my collections over the years.

I produce The Lyrical Lounge, an open-mic poetry show at KBVR-TV and write a bit of poetry myself. Additionally, I do a bit of photography, drawing and painting and especially like to work with unconventional materials in my work.

Artist Statement: This poem works to preserve a moment in time with my family at the dinner table. I feel that this piece captures the essence of my family’s dynamic at the time and is a memory that I look back to fondly despite it’s chaotic nature. The unique energy that my family possesses in these types of moments makes me feel especially connected to my roots and upbringing.