Contributor’s Marginalia: Ashley Sojin Kim responding to Nicholas Pierce’s “Palimpsest”

Dining tables are so ordinary that we rarely think twice about them in our day-to-day lives. We forget about them, often bruising ourselves on their corners because we’ve underestimated their presence. As metaphors, however, they are so laden with meaning that they easily verge on cliché. Too many apocalyptic movies end with the characters sharing a meal at the table, waiting for an explosion that, predictably, comes.

There is nothing explosive (in the literal sense) about Nicholas Pierce’s “Palimpsest,” but it is that lack which makes the poem so impactful. Using details and various structural elements, Pierce crafts a delicate, 18-line Bildungsroman of sorts, a measured rendering of a lived experience that starts in childhood and ends in possibility.

The familiarity of the dining table image imbues the poem with a sense of nostalgia. By looking closely at the table, the narrator sees physical marks of memory (“scars… of dropped utensils / Bumped glasses”) and reminisces on “meals,” “arguments,” “homework going back / To junior high.” This is a deliciously formal poem. Metrically, iambic pentameter conveys a sense of steady sureness. Feminine endings, the extra unstressed syllables, elongate the lines. Caesuras allow the reader leisure, both time and space, to process each item before continuing on. The first hint of a disturbance occurs in the 8th line: “one / Long problem worked out over your whole childhood.” With the “late mother” revealed in the following line, everything changes.

Structurally, the second half of the poem is not markedly different from the first. There is, however, a heightened sense of urgency. The caesuras no longer have a steadying effect; rather, events unfold alarmingly quickly while the iambs plow rhythmically onward. Feminine endings sweep us into the next lines. We are not given the luxury of periods.

Through the lens of loss, once-normal images gain an inevitable layer of meaning. Everyday notes become relics, cherished instructions. The continuous nature of the verb, “reminding,” suggests that the notes of the past still direct the narrator in the present. The notes’ imperatives echo the same authority of the poem’s opening command: “Hold.” The mother’s influence persists beyond her life as does the dining table itself.

Though I’ve been referring to a narrator up to this point, the narrator is decidedly absent. The “you” is never explicitly represented, instead only existing as a possessive pronoun or implicit subject, the recipient of the aforementioned commands. In this way, the implicit narrator is conflated with the dining table; both are present but given the role of witness. Even as passive agents, the two engage in the active processes of maturing and remembering.

Wood is often associated with memory—tree rings “remember” both seasons of drought and of abundant rain. Each line in the poem is like a ring on a tree, dutifully recording what has happened over the years. “The wood not young but still impressionable” is a perfect and poignant ending that calls back to the poem’s title. The end-stop-less line is more opening than conclusion. It welcomes future possibilities, accepts loss but also hope.