Dinner Party in the Deep Woods

(for G & M, who know, although they'll never know)

It's nice to be social. It's hard.
It takes much more preparation
Than an avant-garde novelist
Describing the scene imagines.

It requires being someone
Other than whatever's inside
The someone who's busy being
Someone other than whatever.

And then, after all the good-byes
And promises of other nights,
There's the clean-up, the aftermath,
The consideration of souls

As, for instance, this one, lacking
In the finer social graces,
Who dozes in spill-over lights
Outside the sleeping house tonight

And remembers being a guest
Among small cabins in tall trees
Somewhere north of being the host
Who can barely stand for hello.