Dinner party

Kobus Moolman

The good friends sit around
a candle-lit table under the stars and thin moon.
They eat Cantonese chicken and rice
from deep bowls and drink indiscriminately
from an assortment of tall and squat
coloured bottles.
Someone is sitting quietly staring, someone
is dancing in their chair with their arms,
someone is deep in conversation with another,
while another makes up crude jokes
about himself and everyone else.

It is late, and getting later, and someone
falls asleep in their chair.
Someone else gets up and stretches and lifts
their arms to the sky for no reason.
Another one turns to his neighbour and suddenly
remembers he’s been trying to say something
all night long.

It is late, and getting later still.
No one moves.
Someone talks and then falls silent.
Someone else has nothing to say
and tries very hard not to have to say it.
Another pours another drink and drinks it
quickly in one motion, then looks around
and yawns and does it all over again.

It is late, and too late for anything else
any more. No one says anything, no one risks
anything any more.
It is too late for anyone to want to even
be ignorant any more.
All they want is to go home, to go to bed,
to sleep, to sleep  …
              A Goodbye
              A Goodbye
                            A Goodnight.

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