Poetry

Such an Idiom

Leaving it standing

Photo by Dawn Kim on Unsplash

She said it first in the kitchen not dramatically not trying to be funny just standing there with one hip against the counter waiting for the toast to come up

It is a doggy dog world she said and buttered one corner all the way to the edge

I looked at her then looked away

There were already crumbs on the floor a knife balanced across the lip of the plate

She had been saying things wrong for years

escape goat taken for granite

each one delivered with the same small certainty she used to test bathwater with the inside of her wrist

I used to correct her before I knew what I was correcting

not every time but enough

until one night she said

you always know what I mean

and there was nothing to say after that

She looked back at the toast as if it still needed watching

The toast cooled

Outside a dog barked twice then stopped

She stood at the sink rubbing butter from her thumb

and I thought maybe this was how love kept going

not by being exact but by leaving some wrong thing standing

because the room had already made space for it

Copyright © 2026 by Michael M. Brownstein