Ashtray

Dinner hostess spins spaghetti around the prongs of a fork,

draws long pulls of pasta and Players intermittently.

Later spied at her vintage Antoinette digging

spinach from her teeth with a nicotine-yellowed

long and flaking painted nail, curling

clouds of smoke into the mirror’s judging eye.

Guest etiquette necessitates good conversation, for which

he brings both full-bodied wife and wine.

Her boozy bright-eyed extraversion

excavates him from small-talk’s anxious ditch,

slender wrist refill-dangling, topping her up,

reaching for cigarettes, retreating to flora of wall.

Dead silence – overstepped. Her sick sense of humour,

tongue as sharp as a knife, wine-wielded.

Don’t mind the Mrs, she’s had too much.

He’s laughing, refilling her glass,

the moment for now smoothed over by

smooth wine’s tension soother.

Ashtray sizzling softly there amidst plates of forgotten food,

slid between friends like a rancid puck.

Fire pit shrunk to a cinder bowl later

Found bloodied and broken and spewing its guts,

evening truths smithereening obscenely,

smeared over reddening rug.