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Solitude is a dark cupboard,
a rusted lock, no key out.
Small talk is a latticework of frantic
lips framing gilded tongues in many mouths.
My need for full communion
arrives only after party guests retreat.
That’s when words sneak out from isolation,
steal up behind and,
warmed by the quiet,
melt off the pen like
ice gone liquid at last.
In those moments, syllables seem
less ordinary wafer
than wine poured red
into a cup
too small and ready
after long confinement
for the soul to tincture.
I put the faucet on slow drip
to prevent a fatal
burst.
Don’t expect me to enter the arena every time, for example, when you ask with a flourish of your whisked off undershirt, Do you want tomato soup or romaine with vichyssoise? Doesn’t it then follow that, by plunking down a spoon instead of laying out a salad fork, you take the decision out of it, sort of like asking with the boredom of a tired waiter-- Do you want me to kiss you first?
