After Dinner Clean-Up

Post-drinking

      peeling wax from tablecloth

      slight music – Bela Fleck,

            nothing to sing along with,

      the obsessive-compulsive personality peels

      for a full hour,

            along the edges,

            along the grain of the music,

                  recounting night’s conversation:

                  debates, regrets,

                  fights you shouldn’t have gotten into;

                              edges keep peeling:

                              think of onions

                                    one river on top of another —

                        In a minute I’ll be asleep.


by francis raven


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