From my window I see

the lanterns are lit.

The cut-crystal punchbowl blazes

with lightning from colored orbs:

tangerine and blunt yellow afloat in the night.

 

The first guests fan out from the garden gate 

heading for the table laid with cheese cubes, 

onion dip and celery sticks.

 

I want to shine in this effervescent darkness I 

want to be seen.

I want them to turn their heads and drink me in.

 

They could be cows softly mooing,

moving toward bales at the fence

but satin and gabardine adorn the torsos of the 

hungry -- and they have hidden their horns. 

 

I'll try to be nice and not display my wounds.

 

Their mouths smeared scarlet or

lined with manicured hair

open and shut like fishes sped up in a film.

 

I don't like them, but I will try to make them love me.

 

In and out flows the aquarium water,

fecal with limited acquaintance and

glass-encased friendship.

 

I will defy them.

I'll stand among them, open and vulnerable, And 

they will cower

 

The slow-motion fireflies of burning cigarettes 

trace the movement from casual pose to 

suckling mouths as a dog sniffs each pod of 

guests before he's called back to his leash.

 

The granite walls of the rectory

resound with pulsing chatter

and bursts of metal-edged laughter. 

 

I long to twitter amidst the exotic birds.

 

Why is this not an opera chorus?

Shall I make my festooned

entrance and dance with the man with the knife? 

 

I cannot sing.  My soul is hoarse.

 

I am invisible from my window.

Tomorrow, over coffee, hands propping

overstuffed heads, one of them may remember 

that I was not there.