A Party of One
Strange. It seems the rims don’t seal
quite as well as she remembers.
And the colors;
the greens and yellows have
given way to cold casts of
cobalt and white.
Strange. To be a wife at thirty-five
leaving her loft for suburbia.
Leaving her carefree career
as a promising writer
for a man
on a corporate climb.
Strange. To be a mother at forty
lately joining this race of rats.
Doing things she remembers her
own mother doing,
things she’s grown to
loath and despise.
She knows the rules of that
unwritten book:
a good wife must socialize.
Eating dips made of soup,
sour cream and Ritz crackers
Marking orders – marking off time.
So she sits in the crowd,
a party of one,
duly passing plastic containers.
With a twist of the wrist her soul is
expelled and she’s trapped in a
Tupperware world.
Anthony C. Hayes is an actor, author, raconteur, rapscallion and bon vivant. A one-time newsboy for the Evening Sun and professional presence at the Washington Herald, Tony’s poetry, photography, humor, and prose have also been featured in Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore!, Destination Maryland, Magic Octopus Magazine, Los Angeles Post-Examiner, Voice of Baltimore, SmartCEO, Alvarez Fiction, and Tales of Blood and Roses. If you notice that his work has been purloined, please let him know. As the Good Book says, “Thou shalt not steal.”