a party. Everybody at home getting ready. Pulling on boots, fixing their hair, planning what to say if she's there, picking a pluckier lipstick, rehearsing a joke with a stickpin in it, doing the last minute fumbling one does before leaving for the night like tying up the dog or turning on the yard light. I like to think of them driving, finding their way in the dark, taking this left, that right, while I light candles, start the music softly seething. Everything waiting. Even the wine barely breathing.
Copyright © 2013 by Todd Boss. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on November 8, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.