THE McWILLIAMS' COFFEE TABLE

So the Joneses went out and did it:
took truck and winch and crowbar
and lifted a lamb-adorned
delicate gravestone
from country burial ground,

washed dirt and roots from its base,
set it on oak frame and casters
to be the life of parties,
the butt of jokes, the putting-
down place of soda cans, iced tea
and sweating daquiri glass.
Wine stains the pearly limestone.
Nicotine marks will not clean off.
The floorboards beneath
give off an ominous groan.
Torn between envy and outrage,
the neighbor couple lingers and gawks.
Mrs. McWilliams wants to report them
to the town and parish authorities.
Her husband Peter writes down the name,
Lilian McHenry who died in 18--
something, listens again as drunken Jones
retells the hazards of late night
shopping, guesses the town
where he made the heist.
"Hard work - and dangerous," McWilliams speculates.
"Like candy from babies," Jones boasts.

A new moon comes and passes.
It's party time at the McWilliamses.
And what should the startled visitors
find sporting a Chinese vase,
a Vanity Fair and a plate of brie?
An oblong box of plexiglass
extending the length of the oversize sofa,
contains a sleeping beauty occupant - 
none other than Lillian McHenry,
exhumed with care from her stoneless plot,
her long white corpse hair intact,
her long nails black, eye sockets
dark as six-foot soil,
her shroud a study in tatters,
nose gone, gap teeth a hideous smile,
an onyx ring on her skeleton fingers.
Guests circle it cautiously,
noses alert for that certain smell,
eyeing the carpet for telltale stains,
dreading the thought of a sudden motion
within the griplock of polymer.
Soon enough the discomfort is over.
Lilian is adorned with coffee rings,
a spill of gin, a cocaine dusting.
The Jones parties are a thing of the past. 
The McWilliamses so chic and clever,
so au courant in the finer art
of interior decorating.

- Brett Rutherford

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Read more by Brett Rutherford at The Poet's Press

Poem used by permission of The Poet's Press

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