Table Manner by Jamie Evan Kitts

January 11, 2023
Poem title: Table Manner Poet name: Jamie Evan Kitts Poem: POV: you’re watching someone making pie, arms immaculate on screen. Someone else’s arms tone from push and pull of dough and dish, framing full as fruit finds voice. This is life from parts to piece, mess to mouth, grandma’s house to grand debut. Tin and cradle filled with comfort, tension, and release. Arms they speak: “If lunch feels tight in your book pocket then let this be your forty-second course. Make room for more in heart and oven. Table manner in this kitchen with excuse me ‘a damn fine cup of coffee.’” A harmony of bite and plate, your song of love and lunch. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Jamie Evan Kitts Jamie Evan Kitts (she/her/hers) is a Co-Managing Editor of Qwerty Magazine, a former Managing Editor of the Atlantic Canadian Poets’ Archive, a member of the Egg Poets Society, and a proud and powerful transgender woman. Her poetry can be found in Augur Magazine, The Malahat Review, open mic nights where she screams her queer heart out on the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Wolastoqiyik People, and elsewhere. She is currently waiting for that sweet Taco Bell Quarterly rejection letter everyone keeps talking about and for her grades from the first semester of her Master’s in English Creative Writing. “Table Manner” is poem #1 in a zine-sized poetry EP of the same name she’ll be releasing independently in 2023.