Helena Mesa

Late

No one knows you,
the guests already clustered,
their backs all charmeuse
dipping low. Their chatter’s
not unfamiliar
though the words miss
vowels, the sentences verbs.
The room’s design
you recognize—bookcase,
chairs, not the chandelier.
Barefoot on the couch,
you drum the leather, calling
a stray cat to fill the space.
Instead, waiters offer
cocktail forks on silver trays.
You ask for a dictionary.
When you speak, the words
seep reds, a horizon
behind you. The guests turn
and comment
how hard it is to hear
from such distance.

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Helena Mesa is the author of Where Land Is Indistinguishable from Sea (forthcoming from Terrapin Press) and Horse Dance Underwater and an editor for Mentor & Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets. Her poems have appeared in The Adroit Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series & elsewhere.