It was JB’s birthday, everyone was there but her ex, who I most wanted to see,

half-empty crystal glasses littering the table where confident guests circled

holding the half-full, the slosh of constant conversation, gesticulations,

moles, gold, you said to me I just love tonight, it’s the best night of my life

and I adored the overstatement because I’m always on your side, I said

Mine too though it came off as eager because I’m usually unsophisticated,

wish I was ten years older or younger than I am right now.
HK entered the room, the only one wearing a three-piece suit, and Lady B

was smoking cigarillos from a fancy silver flip-top case, twitching her nose

and scratching her leg – Do the streets feel like conveyor belts?

Do you miss your mother? What was the name of that album with the guy

holding the head of cabbage?  – you reached into the volcano

of meatballs, flicked your wrist at the gherkins, cocked a brow

as Triple Threat scooped nuts from a bowl shaped like a penis and told us

she’d been to the sea, Just look at my tan! but she’s partial to make-up

that lightens her complexion, so yeah, when she walked away

in her red jumpsuit I thought of that giant cherry and spoon sculpture

in the city where my mother grew up; I do miss her, since you asked. 
You were scanning, scanning, you’re always scanning, you once told me

you viewed the world as miniature snapshots sewn together with fine thread

then projected as a silent movie, Last night I crawled into bed at seven

o’clock and slept until nine this morning, I told you I was streaming

a documentary series and you said Oh I know, it can be so hard, the music

grew too loud for me to hear what you said next but when you nodded

toward the shirtless man throwing olives in the air then catching them

one by one in his mouth, I understood completely, half-thoughts

and absinthe shots, you said I’ll start craving milk around noon tomorrow

and I said, surprising you by touching your arm, That’s a marvellous idea for a poem.