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Dinner Hour

little brass bell, cup and striker
colored tin cups, sweating ice water in tiny table socks
foursquare at the big wooden house of dinner
there is a moment of calm, quiet, prayer and hymn, then

we help ourselves to the fever of questions,
elbows, salt, love, paranoia
eat words, inhale sentences
pour paragraphs down our eager throats

syllables spill on the tablecloth
consonants sparkle in the sun
that strikes through the diamond windowbars
extra vowels drop unheeded across the cold linoleum

the world is a scratchy shortwave station
the news of a nearby betrayal
the evermore beat of misunderstanding
we bask in the inner lampglow of warm together

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