Poetry & Portraits: Surprise Party

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Surprise Party
By Eric Meub

My current flame has given me a vase.
A vase. I spread a smile across my face
And gasp and gush about the thing too long:
It’s bright, exuberant, completely wrong.

A former love extends the gift he’s found –
Somehow! – an octavo of Milton, bound
In red morocco. It’s an ancient book.
I’m too aglow to dare return his look.

He lifts the vase, then quickly puts it down
As if to say I’m bedding with a clown.
The clown himself can’t fail to realize
That brief, but errant, rapture in my eyes.

Surprise! Perhaps next time he won’t insist
On managing the invitation list.

Copyright © 2017, 2020 by Susan C. Price & Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena, the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line.