Early evening, late summer
barbeques, cosmos on the deck. Voices
from the neighborhood drift through an open window.
Someone is telling a joke. Someone is waiting
for a punch line.
Burst of laughter, clink of glasses, and I—
the uninvited guest—a party
to artifice.
Nevertheless,
there it is; the perfect invention
of a life not lived.I recall
the tour tape at Alcatraz, an ex-prisoner’s voice told of New Year’s Eve—
lights out, lying in his bunk,
he could hear the revelry
from the city piers, the pop of Champagne, the diminished chord
of women’s voices, faint music from the bandstand
blown in on the breeze.