Cocktails


My folks would have cocktail parties
I remember as a child,
on Saturday nights in the city.
Cigarettes glowed, Martini’s flowed.

From the back bedroom, my sister and I
would listen to grown up chatter
as if some pearl of wisdom heard
would somehow really matter.

Kept awake by the noise,
we’d play a game of chicken
shoving each other round the corner
only to be stricken

with terror and embarrassment
as we stood in the middle of that space,
in our nightgowns and slippers
as if on stage, exposed, red faced,

and mortified, as the guests looked up
momentarily distracted from conversation.
With ****** expressions asking the question
“what could be their motivation”?

Then back to the festivities at hand,
paying no attention to the childish prank,
they continued smoking their cigarettes,
Manhattans, Martini’s - they drank.

As children we wondered
on those Saturday nights,
is this what grown “upness” is like?
Will we have to drink whiskey
and smoke Lucky Strike?


To have good friends and neighbors
Come to our parties
With trays of canapés and appetizers
Is that what will make us popular?
Happy, interesting, wiser?

We plotted and planned,
How our grown up lives
Would be different than mom and dad
It seemed silly to us to make such a fuss
When tomorrow they’d still be sad.

My folks would have cocktail parties
I remember as a child
on Saturday nights in the city
But the clink of ice, didn’t stop at night
It continued on through the daytime too!
Now wasn’t that a pity?