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						Dinner at the Who’s Who by Laure-Anne Bosselaar 
						
							amidst swirling wine  and flickers of silver guests quote  Dante, Brecht, Kant and each other. 
  	I wait in the hall after not  powdering my nose, trying to re- compose that woman who’ll 
  	graciously take her place  at the table and won’t tell her hosts: I looked into your bedroom 
  	and closets, smelled your  “Obsession” and “Brut,” sat  on your bed, imagined you 
  	in those spotless sheets, looked  long into the sad eyes of your son staring at your walls from his frame.
  	I tried to smile at myself  in your mirrors, wondering if you  smile that way too: those resilient 
  	little smiles one smiles  at one’s self before facing the day,  or another long night ahead — 
  	guests coming for dinner.  So I wait in this hall because  there are nights it’s hard 
  	not to blurt out Stop!  Stop  our babble: Pulitzer, Wall Street, sex, Dante, politics, wars, have some Chianti...
  	let’s stop and talk.  Of our thirsts  and obsessions, our bedrooms  and closets, the brutes in our mirrors, 
  	the eyes of our sons.  There is time yet — let’s talk.  I am starving.						 
						
						
						
						
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