The Leaves

The leaves lived behind the dining room doors.

They only came out when company came out.

Dad would lift one end of the table, my brothers

And I the other. Then we’d shuffle a few steps

Backward, pulling the table apart.

Turned out that, like the loaves and fishes,

The table wasn’t finite.

We could make it as long as we needed it to be.

Did we need one leaf, two leaves, three?

It depended on who all was coming.

I loved the nights we needed all the leaves.

They meant there were still too many

Of  us to fit around the leafless table.

But I knew one day there’d be no need for them.

Then what would we do with the leaves?

I thought how it would be better for a few of us

To sit at too long a table that had three leaves in it

And have to raise our voices

Than to sit whispering around the leafless one.