Amy Lowell - The Dinner-Party

Fish
"So . . ." they said,
With their wine-glasses delicately poised,
Mocking at the thing they cannot understand.
"So . . ." they said again,
Amused and insolent¹.
The silver on the table glittered,
And the red wine in the glasses
Seemed the blood I had wasted
In a foolish cause.

Game
The gentleman with the grey-and-black whiskers
Sneered languidly over his quail².
Then my heart flew up and laboured,
And I burst from my own holding
And hurled³ myself forward.
With straight blows I beat upon him,
Furiously, with red-hot anger, I thrust against him.
But my weapon slithered over his polished surface,
And I recoiled⁴ upon myself,
Panting.

Drawing-Room
In a dress all softness and half-tones,
Indolent and half-reclined,
She lay upon a couch,
With the firelight reflected in her jewels.
But her eyes had no reflection,
They swam in a grey smoke,
The smoke of smouldering ashes,
The smoke of her cindered heart.

Coffee
They sat in a circle with their coffee-cups.
One dropped in a lump of sugar,
One stirred with a spoon.
I saw them as a circle of ghosts
Sipping blackness out of beautiful china,
And mildly protesting against my coarseness
In being alive.

Talk
They took dead men's souls
And pinned them on their breasts for ornament;
Their cuff-links and tiaras
Were gems⁵ dug from a grave;
They were ghouls battening on exhumed⁶ thoughts;
And I took a green liqueur from a servant
So that he might come near me
And give me the comfort of a living thing.

Eleven O'Clock
The front door was hard and heavy,
It shut behind me on the house of ghosts.
I flattened⁷ my feet on the pavement
To feel it solid under me;
I ran my hand along the railings
And shook them,
And pressed their pointed⁸ bars
Into my palms.
The hurt of it reassured⁹ me,
And I did it again and again
Until they were bruised¹⁰.
When I woke in the night
I laughed to find them aching,
For only living flesh can suffer.