It’s not why you’re here, I know,
But you’re the only one around
And I don’t want to think alone in the
Echoing silence of an empty room
So won’t you stay and have some tea?
I know it’s not like you,
But in these hours when the night stretches impossibly long before us
I feel we may best understand each other.
So come in and we’ll sit,
I’m sorry that these shabby chairs are all I have to offer
(I’m sorry that my company is all I have to offer)
But at this hour, who will be the wiser?
We can drink in silence.
(Please use the coasters; they dampen the sound
Against how silent we are in unresolved tension.)
It will be a moment of solidarity,
Almost--
Were but for our history, it would be.
Still, sit, sit, remember:
A drink with this old nemesis is yet better than drinking alone.
Even if we have nothing we must say,
Silence could be our salvation.
So stay and have some tea with me,
And I will not quote Shakespeare, and you will not sneer,
And I promise I will not notice if you linger,
Perhaps, longer than you generally would.
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