Fresh Meat
A rare sea creature in an evening gown,
I float around the tables and try
to find my name
made foreign by calligraphy.
My left-hand neighbour is already seated
and reading Course in General Linguistics,
which proves he has no idea
how to communicate with other humans.
On the table, candles shake as they wait
and each of us gifted a soft, white swan.
To my right, the card simply reads: Rufus.
I imagine him gentle-eyed, an innocent
kind of generous. So different from all the men
who cock about like wolf in sheep’s
cummerbund, who want compliments,
success, always a smile served with steak
when he strides through the door.
With a howl of golden hair,
Rufus’s arrival interrupts this dreaming.
He holds a pheasant in his mouth,
its neck like a limp ladies glove,
feathers a damn fiasco against his chest.
He drops the bird on his plate
and pants with pleasure. His eyes ask:
Am I the good boy?