Collected Stories

Milton Jordan

April 27, 2022

But for table talk, we were not unlike

our ordinary neighbors, the middle

of the middle class, cathedral Philco

or Motorola radios, black and white 

television sets in a few houses

with standup trays to serve as meal tables.

We were, though, long without television

and Father dressed for dinner, his shirt

glare white, a dark tie knotted four-in-hand

expecting the four of us on time,

equally well dressed, attentive to stories

of his day and ready with our own.

The four of us, now far scattered, gathered

outside Ozona once more last summer

sitting around Doc’s well scarred table,

gravy grown cold on our plates and long necked

brown bottles filling empty spaces,

surprised when Sarah said she’d seen two

volumes of his Collected Stories 

still shelved at the Heights Branch Library.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown. His collection, A Forest for the Trees, is due this summer from Backroom Window Press. He is editing an anthology from the first year of the Texas Poetry Assignment.