The Party

There will be cigarettes and small amounts of alcohol
At the party
Seated in the dark around a lit pool
The air is one-hundred percent saturated with gentle music
And the sounds of gentle voices;
Occasionally rising above the smooth notes;
And gentle keystrokes
When they look back on the night;
Recollection ringing through their mind;
They will remember no buzzing mosquitoes; no pests at all
But there will have been
One, maybe two, buzzing through the atmosphere,
Singing through the very night you fear.
The smoke from orange-glowing dope-sticks curls slowly towards the rising moon.

You’ll want to leave the party;
To go home perhaps
But no matter how much you plead
I will not leave you alone in the dark.
As we walk down the beach you wonder
Which one of us will moan first?
Who will gasp the first gasp
And who will have the last laugh
Whose clothes on whose floor will be hastily hung over a loose frame while their owner quietly slips out the door?

The night quickly gets better as the music progresses
As the smoke curls
As the drinks flow
And as clothes fall to the ground.
As small grains of sand are entrenched among tall towers of hair
As backs are scratched and knees are bruised
As clothes get wet and then float away with the cares of a young couple, lost in each other’s lips

As the cigarette burns more and more
The fingers are more likely to be burned
Black with smoke already, they are nonchalant
We become more and more weightless; with the green water of the pool we swim in,
The moon rises higher

The moths circle closer and closer to death; waiting in a cigar.