A party of mourners

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A party of mourners
By Chris Gage

There’s a place we go after having loved.
You must wear white because they play home movies
on your back, as you mingle
without talking to the others.
If you look quick enough,
pictures of birthdays and first dates
can be seen on an old man’s shoulder
and everything is something
you will try to memorize
for after you have left.

The party goers have been killing themselves
with the thought
that women wore gay-colored skirts and silk to bed
and men wore black-soled shoes and took their scotch neat
and at times they still remember it this way
even though, there,
contorted on the girl’s hip by the bandstand,
a man in drab, motioning fiercely,
slips unnoticed through a crowd of women.