Don't Be the Last to Leave

Jane Downing

The invitation offered music and dance

and wasn’t it a crack

all in all the jokes and drunken

faux pas and inadvertent truths and singing

it off with arms around shoulders swaying

all the lining up for the buffet

with big eyes and bigger plates

the food all the food too much on my plate

forgetting some left before

the party proper started

slipping out          small talk abandoned

a few teenagers passing through

felled to accidents

well the wine was strong

the punch packed a …

others doing what they loved and over

and out as evening arrived

and bats gathered high in the trees

then the big C arrived uninvited but not

unexpected while you were all learning to spell

the word aneurysm and the one snowflake

built to an avalanche down that slippery

slope

the late-served finger food

near sucked bone dry but still

the music played on a loop for the stragglers

someone sure to mention genes

the luck of longevity          wondering

why we pronounce the g

twice          like a second bite of the cherry

gyrating slows to a heaving leaning waltz

hips and hip hop not what they were

then they turned the music off

the lights long low now off

as if the host wants you too gone

yes time to go

and you’d behaved yourself so well

embraced the kindergarten rules

of life sharing and cleaning up after yourself

and being kind

missing somehow the one about overstaying

your welcome standing here all alone

amongst the spent confetti

bedraggled streamers thrown at departing ships

half-empty cans cigarette butts stubbed

drowning at the bottom of glasses

all the dregs and no-one to share the joke with

they’ve shuffled off into the night

the only light

coming from outside

from the backs of departing cars