Breakfast in a Hotel in Västerås

There are no Styrofoam cups here, no plastic
spoons. The plates, still warm from washing,
are solid in your hands. There’s so much food
in bowls, warming trays, and platters, you don’t
know what to choose first. From pillowy piles
of rapeseed-yellow scrambled eggs and fruit
that looks fresh-picked from a field or recently
plucked, still glistening with drops of rain—to
assortments of sliced meats and cheeses locally
sourced—you have never seen such an opulent
display of buffet-style breakfast delights. And
your fellow guests look like hikers and cyclists
who have just awakened, flushed and refreshed,
from a solid eight hours of restful sleep. But the
sounds in this gym-sized, though somehow still
intimate room are as good as the sights. There
is the muted hum of conversations—everyone
as polite to one another as a boy raised by his
grandmother. Civilization has reached its zenith
here. And I like the clink of metal spoons hitting
the walls of sturdily constructed coffee cups, the
clatter of shiny silverware unfolding from cloth
napkins as soft and white as trumpeter swans. I
wish everyone could have such a delicious meal
among so many beautiful, benevolent strangers—
people I will never see again who can say good
morning in multiple languages as if they mean it.

*

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven full-length collections of poetry, including Night Talks: New & Selected Poems (Press 53), which was a finalist for (general) poetry in the International Book Awards and the Best Book Awards. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, anthologies, magazines, and newspapers, including “American Life in Poetry,” Asheville Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, JAMA, Poetry Foundation, Rattle, The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily, and many more. Among her numerous awards are the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, Nautilus Silver Book Award, Tennessee Williams Poetry Prize, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize. She lives in North Carolina.