Elizabeth Hughey – 2 Poems

Elizabeth Hughey

2 Poems

My Party

When I shop for friends, I shop drunk. Will someone get over here and talk to me? I tried lipstick but I could not determine where the lip ends and the nose begins. This is not my party anymore. Where’s the cake? It is the party’s party. This is the partiest party in the party party. Scotch squats in a crystal decanter like a man in a dress. Even the perfume eats with pinkies. I want to go home. This is why this is not my party anymore: It has elected, as a group, without words, like a herd of moths, to celebrate something else. Taste buds. The end of all work. No. For one moment, one thought simultaneously bloomed in each head: nobody wanted to be someplace else. The men forgot about the game. The slim minnow of lust left the bellies of boys. One woman faced the window and fit a whole tea sandwich into her mouth like a bedspread into the dryer. Even the waiter slicing the roast carved a thick piece in the likeness of his father. How Much Longer Before I know the names of the existing, I am looking for a new bird. The Goodhawk, the Noblenut. My funny bird pinned to the road, a new city. My feelings about maps and shadows are so similar. Noun verb the adjective, adjective noun. That is a car ride. I feel about parades what I feel about skipping pages. Prayerfowl, Luck Jay, Blame Finch. There are many ways and many reasons for the world. The cow lows a new milk in torrents into the pail, a field of eggplants, a factory of basketballs. Let’s not be sad about vegetables. If there were no births, and all things were mined, like blue cabbage, like marble, the coal minor bringing soot-blackened lambs from below. Once you have spoken, twice I have heard.

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