The Party

It feels good,
doesn't it, to believe the last laugh finally
didn't come too soon, to taste the iced and
cold champagne with tongue stung by a
recent kiss, a lover along the pool palms. Water
glazes the glass he holds, cut berry at the bottom where
bubbles burst and float up slow. Your
best friend's soprano rises glissando above
the group gathered at the table you are bending
over, her throat opens an aria and
you stand and beam teeth and gleam into her blue
eyes, proud to bond, of youth. This is a pile
of fun, that's what this is and you keep making
the cut, so you soften the edge of
vigilance with an eraser everyone thinks is free. There is a sudden
brilliant glare over by the charcoal grill, some
sailor playing tricks with his Bic and other hand. Now
someone's slapped your shoulder, I love the way you
and it's here you're hoping you'll forget all that stuff
you've been trying to forget and in the bathroom there's
a mop bucket blocking the way and you're trying to
get over it when the little pills arrive like
absolution wafers. A guy has smashed
into the pool splashing the girls you don't know, there is
voiced consternation about mishaps of hair-do's
in humid rooms. Someone yells to anybody, We're
running out of juice! The waitress has removed her nametag

and the shirt it rode in on, she's sitting on Zaymo's lap, he's
going on about his ex-wife, how it all went down
the drain in Jacksonville, he's telling her about his jealousy
but he's using the word love. The waitress thinks
it's funny she's laughing for her life. Tasha brings
you another drink it's less red than before and at
the tiki hutch a guy makes sorry
his reflection in the pool: I don't know how it happened,
do you? This guy with a big Semper Fi belt
buckle has a girl's bobbing head in his
hands, he's saying, It's just round the corner, you could
be at work by nine and here Tasha stops mixing, she's spilling
pouring straight shots, a girl has fallen by the deep end everybody's
saying ha you're okay you're good you're fine
It still feels the way it does so you dance to some
more loud music, gyrate to the rattlesnake band and it's here,
isn't it, you let slip from your fist a bunch of
black balloons and where they float, like prayers,
is anybody's guess.