Party of Asses

Groups of people were talking on couches

or crowding the kitchen

and laughing around the keg, and Ed

the tax guy we all use,

told his wife Liz center stage

in the living room,

"you are by far the ugliest woman here."

The resulting hush whispered

"not again" for those of us

who'd been around awhile. the new

people blanched as office rumors

bared themselves.

I started a Floyd CD,

embarrassed by her pain.

Next morning, the office

was hung over, Liz was late.

She was a child lost in the mall,

sending a moist gaze

around the room that didn't ask

why the ostriches buried their heads

in their work but kept searching

for eyes to contact that she didn't notice

were as moist as hers. The best

I could give her was a faded

Mona Lisa smile.

Some days later

at the office party of the week

and despite our prayers otherwise,

Liz showed up, somehow without Ed

who by now knew we'd taken

our taxes elsewhere.

Everybody tried to behave as friends

but the conversation was timid

and always came back to last week's party,

and the things her presence forced us to remember,

but soon the CD ran out and no one changed it

because we were all shouting and Liz was begging

us to take our taxes back to Ed

and someone pulled her sweater

up in the back and gasped

and I had to get the fuck out of there.