The Party

He is not the one for your fabulous party.
He will claim a soft seat and sit,
dead weight for hours.

A party to him is like jury duty.

He’s too serious, the one the others avoid
or discuss among themselves from a distance.

He will make the other guests uncomfortable
with his talk of mass extinction.

Such a hard-ass, living alone with his crab traps and memories.

He starts and stops, with many long pauses, like his boring poetry
that goes on forever, then starts all over again…

and before the party ends
you are wondering perfectly justified:
Why did we invite him? Did we feel sorry for him?

He knows only one story…about a woman he knew,
so beautiful with blond flames of hair and her arms full of sunrise.