All through dinner
Sara gazed at the guests,
but said nothing.
Her sister, Maggie,
did most of the host's job
of conversation,
and the MP, whose name
she'd forgotten,
some back-bencher
from so and so,
did most of the talk.
Sara ate little;
sipped the wine;
she sat listening
to this and that
and other idle chat.
It was they themselves
she gazed at
in her own fashion;
taking in how they talked,
gestures of hands,
moustaches of the men,
necklaces of the women,
wives and their chitter-chatter,
leaving the men
to their smoke
and conversations,
their wit, their talk
not for the ladies' ears.
Even amongst the women
she said little,
just once saying
how Pascal feared
the wide expanse of space,
leaving the other women,
including her sister,
with raised eyebrows
and blank face.
Oct 18, 2018
Oct 18, 2018 at 4:30 AM UTC
All through dinner
Sara gazed at the guests,
but said nothing.
Her sister, Maggie,
did most of the host's job
of conversation,
and the MP, whose name
she'd forgotten,
some back-bencher
from so and so,
did most of the talk.
Sara ate little;
sipped the wine;
she sat listening
to this and that
and other idle chat.
It was they themselves
she gazed at
in her own fashion;
taking in how they talked,
gestures of hands,
moustaches of the men,
necklaces of the women,
wives and their chitter-chatter,
leaving the men
to their smoke
and conversations,
their wit, their talk
not for the ladies' ears.
Even amongst the women
she said little,
just once saying
how Pascal feared
the wide expanse of space,
leaving the other women,
including her sister,
with raised eyebrows
and blank face.
A dinner party in 1912
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