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Words at Tea
by Kay Weeks

I tell you our words seem more
Like a series of tiny
Appetizers, or canapés,
Tantalizingly inadequate,
Or puffs in exquisite balance
Beside a chair

Crumbs in cushions of a chair
Our words suddenly light no more
Nor sounds in delicate balance
But each an arrow tiny,
Yet deeply wounding, inadequate
As day-old canapés

Come dawn, yellowed canapés
And we like rungs of a failing chair
Even silence is inadequate
So we say we want no more
Of this love that is now so tiny
And hopelessly out of balance

Holding on to each other for balance
Our hopes fragile as canapés
And our world grown so tiny
We move in unison to a chair,
As if we feel we know more
Than the other about inadequate

We agree on the nature of inadequate
And how things are simply out of balance
While blaming the dilemma more
And claiming life is a series of canapés
Served sitting rigidly upright in a chair
Leaving us feeling ridiculously tiny

Dear one, we are not tiny!
We are not inadequate!
Can we now—together in this chair--
Give each other strength and balance--
And, going beyond mere canapés,
Use our words to love the more?

Alone, we are tiny, out of balance,
Alone, we are inadequate as cold canapés
But together, like a sturdy chair, we are more.

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