The old wooden kitchen table

Mum having a roll-up and cup of tea at the table, sketchbook circa. early 1990s

The old wooden kitchen table has seen so much. All those breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Newspapers read and, once upon a time, letters written on its surface. Cigarettes smoked and tea drank. Joints rolled. Children drawing and painting. Card games and chess. Conversations, celebrations, good news and bad news. Sometimes sneaky sexual intercourse and once vomited upon one drunken Christmas Eve. Numerous spillages. The old kitchen table gets taken for granted. It’s like the human body; it remembers everything, and has the scars and blemishes to prove it. Underneath the table, on its underbelly, children’s graffiti from long ago. It feels so solid, like it’s always been there, the wooden table, in the kitchen, and always will be. It will outlive us all.