Thirteen Lines for 'The Poet'

Of course, everyone would be there but you.

Crawling into the ‘lit’ mouth, converging 
to the tooth that bites into your poetry.

Smiles would be thrown, aficionados shown
the restless tongue of the coterie -

Of course, ‘candid’ moments would be caught
by an unpaid amateur,

an aperture twinkling to tinkling glasses.
And you won’t be there

the anonymous loser of the lottery,
loyally by a book about death,

talking to your late father - founding a therapy
in the proud madness of rejecting reality!