The Feast

To begin, for each guest
a gift of honey in a small jar.  

Broad leaves laden
with sticky-starchy rice, a bed for 

cloud-white fresh fish, steamed
and spiced. Tall tumblers

of cool juices, a good wine
of unknown provenance

in a thick-walled carafe.
After, unfamiliar fruits

placed within reach
to be eaten at leisure.  

Then I woke and this all became
a rapidly fading dream —

don’t recall, ten minutes later,
what the perfect conversation was

that accompanied it, do not know
the name of she who sat across from me

and made me feel small and
as full of future as if I were a seed.

I remember her eyes,
the taste of that fruit,

how the honey in glass
glowed in the sunset, 

and how much I wanted
to call that place home.