Thursday Dinner

My husband tells me the chicken is at three o’clock, green beans at six, mashed potatoes with their peppery gravy at nine. I imagine black analog hands, tap my way to the chicken he’s cut. You could poison me, I joke. Arsenic Corn, Strychnine in the gravy. He sets down my glass of tea. Antifreeze, I add. I can’t see the pebbles of ice in the glass. I’m sorry, I say, and tuck a napkin into my collar. I often miss my mouth these days, fork rice into my chin, spill salad down my shirt. Once, a pinto bean fell into my cuff and I found it three hours later. Are you saving it? My husband asked. On the first day of my blindness, there was only a smudge, a distortion. Then, a dirty window you could sit at, filtered sunlight. The glass became caked with wild ivy, mud, sea foam, until it blocked the light, until I left the world and its bright roses. I’m sorry. I’ve become a knife on the floor, spilled tea, a body caught between now and before. A green bean he picks up, drops back onto the plate.