The faltering Night

In a party today, my throat parched.
I slit myself, edge to edge, in the plastic night.
Looking at the men and women, known faces
And their unmistakable steps, hips shaking
to the practiced rhythm of recycled songs
and greetings, the leering, turning around,
cowering, ignoring, letting in a faint light of moon
dance wayward between lipsticked mouths.
In familiar photo frames, they stood, hung on to
each other’s lies.

In the hungry tide of the night,
they have tried hard to oscillate between smooth talk,
munching on juicy gossip and yawning.
At the dinner buffet, their half-baked words
and grin, ear-to-ear, attempts of blushing
at vain compliments float around
the crisp air aromatic with food and foibles.
They stutter and fumble, raising toasts
and breathing, shallow, contrived, perishing.

In the party today, I licked my lips, lonely, ornate,
I looked into the prancing and preening of kids,
the male gazes, the lame old stories
that vanished and resurfaced.
From a far-flung corner, I smiled back at the faces,
Surveying the lies of the night, running wild.