5 years without a table

State of Affairs April 29, 2025 Today it's gonna be fancy. We might sing. Some of us will flute through an apple or bite into a Tafelspitz rather than talk to Gordon Ramsay about salmon. We’ll be angry. We wanted the same for us—to treat us right. “Blow this, oh, blow this house, house down I’m breakin’ dishes up in here, all night (uh-huh) I ain’t gonna stop until I see police lights (uh-huh) I’ma fight a man tonight.” Thank you for letting us borrow your lyrics. It’s work, you know—these dishes ain’t gonna do themselves. We might forget them till dawn, after yesterday, or throw them into the left-behind corner of tomorrow. We’ll connect our meals with cables—open our mouths— slurring every spoken word into splattered ceramics, sending clouds of noise into air. Our toes might touch beneath the table, painting on plates, or standing between forks and knives. By now, we could’ve earned 50 euros, with an imaginary hourly wage of 10. We could almost buy coffees for everyone working on the 6th floor. Maybe we should stop painting wet walls and start saving for 500 grams of cheese that reveals its innards to us. Please do not pet. Anyway, we’ll weave our threads through sound, tools, money, police, apples, and still lifes in oil— to lean back on each other, meeting for dinner at dawn— giving advice for ice against sore throats. But we won’t make sense.