Daniel Coudriet

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THE DINNER PARTY

The mice are surprising hosts.

All of them circulate upon each other like a scampering rug.

Legs of the woman, uncertain of their intentions, her floral dress

and her calves frozen like stumps

and we all feel sorry as the mice scurry over her

the way small animals creep through the snow.

*

The room as a sneeze, in a crowd, all clotted.

We cringe as they climb the white nylon.

The mice with tiny gloves on their paws in the courtyard.

She shrieking in French, unmentionables,

they leave little prints, at night, aware they might freeze.

It is astonishing.

*

To imagine how they maintain the gardens and all of the flowers

are painted fingertips.

And adorning vases all over the house.

My wrist, they’ve eaten it. And they’ve left me

elaborate equations on the dining room walls.

Sitting in their places, name tags in front of them.

*

To envision the furry swarm digging and planting.

All of them grown in proportion to the mice, fresh-cut.

As I am thinking, they are nibbling at my hand,

with a pointed brush of a forearm. I use it to paint

a mathematical design.

To explain:

all of the guests written in an indecipherable script

at place settings so small they can scarcely be touched.

*

Without being crushed.

With the entree in a covered metal serving tray.

They pull back the cover in a cloud of steam

appearing like a straight line.

China and wine glasses to pick up the utensils:

And here come the mice, the guests tying their minuscule napkins.

It is my severed hand, holding an apple.

SONNET

You cannot understand my sadness,

my stomach a dripping rag

on a post at the end of our herb garden.

A pack of chihuahuas, each of them missing

front legs from the wheelbarrow accident,

yapping and hopping like shrunken kangaroos.

My heart on a string. That someone

using it like a yo-yo, the splatter paint

of blood all down the sidewalk.

It’s on the glasses of the little girl

sucking her thumb. It’s on the tongues

outstretched of the chihuahuas

who are always following mindlessly,

the heart lowering, raising.

LYRIC

Night, blue field of snow

like a room

a sidewalk through the middle,

plowed, field mice

skating there.

And I look up from my frying pan

full of ice cubes,

another in a series of love letters

to my therapist,

who reminds me to be sad.

And the flapjacks I’m making

will be sad and malformed.

Silhouette of a stroller being pulled

by wolves,

the baby inside blue

but alive, with eyes like ashtrays.

I bring it home to you,

not my therapist,

and we set the basket on the stove

to thaw. It goes up in flames,

but the baby’s still

blue, blue as before.

It runs out into the night

using ping pong paddles as snowshoes—

odd footprints like graves

for my flapjacks.