Reception

You enter the room
as if emerging on stage
trying to recall
which of the many bit-parts
must be resumed this evening.
 
The alpha males bray
to each other. The ladies
affect to listen
while searching beyond, but turn
aside from the also-ran.
 
This is what we can’t
admit: in front or behind,
to move in any
circle traces the same nought,
the painted Merry-Go-Round.
 
I wish the rule was:
speak only verse, sign-language,
or a foreign tongue
stipulated in advance
on the RSVP card.
 

John Weston

in collection, Echo Soundings, 2012, Shoestring Press,
ISBN 978-1-907356-45-2