Late evening. Maybe 10:00, 10:15. I'm at a party. An artist party, to be exact. There are about eighty people in this hardwood-floored, smoky room. I milled around the crowded room, burbon glowing in my throat. Finding an empty seat, I sit on one of the worn leather couches pushed against the wall and take a drag on my cigarette.
   My gaze wanders the little clusters of people discussing up-and-coming painters and authors, playing games of "do you know so and so?", and shamelessly self-promoting like the seasoned prostitutes that we are of the art scene. Billie Holiday croons her ballads and the lamps throw dim orange light onto the guests. The women in their knee-length sheath dresses, pumps, pearls, cigarettes, carefully curled hair, and red lipstick; the men in worn tweed, button-up white cotton collared shirts, creased pants, shiny loafers, rolled socks, cigars, and tabacco. We are not a rich set of people, but almost disgustingly lower-middle class.
   A man walks towards me, stops four inches away from my black pointy-toed shoes.
   "Is this seat taken?" he asks, gesturing towards the empty spot next to me on the couch. I give him the once-over. Twenty-fiveish, tall, dark hair parted in the middle and carefully combed, blue eyes, a hint of stubble.
   "No, go ahead," I reply.
   "Thanks," he sits and takes a sip from his glass.
   "Gin?"
   "Yeah,"
   "What do you go by?"
   "Eric Howards." he answers shortly.
   "How do you know the host, Mr. Howards?"
He looks at me from over the top of his glass.
   "I don't,"
I laugh.
   "Why are you here?"
   "The word gets out."
   "Where you from?"
   "I'm visiting from out of town, from Vermont."
   "Oh?"
   "And yourself?"
   "Massachusettes, born and bred," I smile.
There's a pause in the conversation as I get a new cigarette. He takes out his lighter, and lights it for me.
"Thank you,"
   "You're welcome,"
   "'Veined his poor hand I held, and I saw through his unseeing eyes to the roots of the sea. an old tormented man three-quarters blind,'" I quote softly, absent-mindedly. Eric Howards tilts his head, disarmed.
   "Dylan Thomas, Elegy," he names the poem with surprising ease.
   "Yes,"
   "Why that poem?" he asks. I shrug.
   "Because I hate small talk. It's so conventionally boring. Too civil to be rational."
   "Who are you?" he asks with curiosity.
I blow smoke rings over his head, drain my burbon. I run my finger over the waxy red lipstick print on my glass. I look him dead in the eye, blue meeting brown, incline my head, and smile.
   "I'm a poet."