The Dinner Guest
The guests are nervous. Some
have given false names to their friends.
Others allude to the unseasonable fog.
Someone knocks upon the door.
Silence unfolds like a hardwood box.
Heartbeats are audible,
but no one hears them.
He enters the room
with an invisible flourish, and sits
at the chair that nobody wanted.
He comes without luggage.
He comes for the night.
The young children giggle
and make faces in their napkins.
They think this man is funny because
he never blinks —
he has a way of endearing himself to children.
Perhaps, it is his excessive politeness.
Blood Red Moon, Bradford Evans
The hostess is wearing black.
The pearls around her neck
match his cheekbones.
She fills his glass with brandy
to break the ice.
He neither drinks it nor refuses,
being a man of few words and vices.
When her husband asks him about his line of work,
he merely smiles and says:
"I run a small family business."
The ice inside his drink
refreezes.
Then someone says dig in
and they do.
Bone-white plates are laid with sauces and hams.
Appetites are vengeful; it helps them
to forget what they're afraid of.
For a moment, they even seem to enjoy
this stranger's silent company.
And no one notices that he does not eat,
though he holds his knife and fork
like a surgeon.
After the plates are cleared
a young girl climbs into his lap
and asks him for a story.
When he laughs the sound is inhuman.
A dentist detects the flaw in his incisors.
(Is there some connection
with the unseasonable fog?)
He rises from the table
and begins:
"Once upon a time there was a family. . ."
Gradually, goblets are drained.
The mirrors cover themselves.
A dog begins to bark in the courtyard--
until, one by one, the guests drift off
to a sad and desolate country
where the people are in mourning.
And all that remains in this room are his voice,
the sound of sleeping children,
the unwound clocks ticking vaguely
toward sunrise.
