The Guests
Our house was strewn with
people whom no on claimed
to know, people who had
been there for thirty years
or more. One might show
himself at dinner, cobwebbed
and thinner than the dead.
No one would speak of it,
unless the guest became
unpleasant, and then it was
in gestures, because our
voices were saved for something
better. Our dry lips flecked
with foam, our hammering hearts
out-waited our guests, and
now, at last, we are alone.
~ James Tate