Clean

by Lara Zeng

after R.L.

One noon my grandfather begins

bent and seized

over the kitchen table

stripping down its layers

of gloss finish and dirt

black in the grooves. He wields

the cruel end of a sponge

under his callus-burnt palm.

He is silent, his duty steel-

wool begetting the raw wood.

How once, as a girl, I split chives

upon its face, punctuating

pale lines in the white flesh

turned bare, butter-knifed

and green with my incisions.

Under his still-soft hands,

I asked. Do you know I love you.

He was roughly, with splinters— 

who told you to say that?