On the fork, milky packages of cramps and migraine.
My fortune spelled in cream sauce. Three days of doubling over.
If I had pushed the plate away: static charge,
the other guests counting seconds. So I bolted the pain.
Things I have done to be polite: worn ugly clothes;
absorbed the insult; let boys grope me in the dark.
Their astraphobia. My dampened power.
Stupid, isn’t it, to bring all this to dinner.
When I was a girl they dreaded what I’d say, and their fear
ran through me in blue jolts. I was learning my desire.
And then the circuits burnt, no path for the return
stroke. All I can do is pose my face in the shape of yes
until there is no real wanting anymore. My joints
inflamed, my gut all twisted by the voltage. And there
they sit, congealing on the stoneware, the allergenic crêpes,
daring me to hurl that luminous refusal.
