I imagined it was made by
a skilled 19th-century craftsman in
a sawdust-filled workshop
near the Amish country of Pennsylvania.
It stood eighteen inches tall
in my grandparent's Victorian-era house
for eighty years,
home to a hand-painted hurricane lamp
and brass ashtray.
Visitors came and went, sipping
drinks, flicking ashes,
reading books by lamp light.

By 1962, it was home to my elbow.
I was a six-year-old,
fingers tapping out my rage on its smooth surface -
keeping time with the mantle clock.
My father was dead at thirty-one
leaving me in exile
with a distant mother and
broken brother,
watched over by my grandmother.
The table seemed to know its place,
had claimed its space in the world.
I was sent...