candles and parents before bed

{scene: it's the girl and the family dressed around the dinner table,

two big candles like miniature suns sparkle
the father, the mother
ask questions like the other,
they are well attired and so full of things
that i don't know why they need to eat.

the dad has glasses on and looks at things like
they might break if i touched them.

the mom has more heart than most and thinks
that the more you smile the less you hide.

there is another girl here, the girl i am withs
sister:
taller and a little bit afraid to prove it,
wants to know my antipathies as to
prove what must equal my less honest desires,
i glance to her every now and then to show
her that i know,
sometimes startling, but to be brave
i don't worry about where this will lead.

i know she knows, what? i am not dangerous,
just less attractive than the comfort of equanimity.

there are plates and things too.

so the scene is set.}


after the rose, the plucking becomes easier,
a bled hand full of thorns.

we are eating, chatting casual, lurk
and duck the things i mean to say,
but the bird is tasty, i comment
on that, the mom is all "not too
dry" and i am "not at all."
...
its the fragrance that first attracted me to her:
small, casually enticing, and i am not so sure
what let her let me through the door.
...
but after the first glass of wine i left
my hand near hers and she squeezed it
like someone who was wanting to,
the dad noticed we caught each other
in the doubt that is so ever present in
roadkill.

the peas weren't mushy, no.

i was getting a little brazen
told them the story of when i was just
a boy and went naked to the girl
i liked.

i think i was just in that shirk the nappy phase,
climbing fences and mastering the art of
coffee service through dirt, 

and maybe they thought it was cute,
i told it with care but i know that it opened
the envelope to see me naked with her.
frightful- dad, with his knowledge of stamps,
wouldn't let her go cheap though,
and i think mom was caught between the 'mom
moment' and the imagining of being young
again.

big sister was checking her phone,
there was a bit of gravy on her face,
i guess i could of texted her.

the one i was with
was smiling

and cute and in her element by the picture
on the wall of her in a gown and cap,
smiling like the one she was wearing now,
smelling of rose oil and the dust that libraries
seem to shelve, i had to be myself

in that moment:
sipping from the adult glass. not just blurting
out, holding through like a hand squeeze,
aching on to words,

i love you.

it was private, and this dinner crowd
was all about the candles and the splutter
of wax, seeking out the shadows
with the irony of flame,

but later, in her room
when she was messing her hair out of its bun
and warming her feet in cute bed socks
i told her
and she told me too.

and the dinner was nice, but this,
i knew:

was perfect.