Toward Empathy

Surely every couple has one:
the gripe with the most traction.
Ours regards order in the apartment,
and the friction between it and us
is plenty, enough.

On returning home, you deposit
the day’s gains with casual hand—
change, tissues, papers scattered
across the kitchen table,
a formlessness I can’t accept.

We circled it again the other day.
I explained how a cleared chair,
a hung coat fills in for arms
I can’t control; a weak proxy,
but still.

When it was your turn,
you invoked possibility,
made your case for easy access:
when things are sent to their homes
immediately, I worry I’ll forget.

In days since, a memory:
family meals at the local Denny’s—
trays with pastel sugar packets,
golden nuggets of butter, tiny tubs of jam;
all for us. How the only option
for my brother and me was
everything on our toast.

--me