Victorian Parlour Games

Victorian Parlour Games


We are four in the parlour
Mabel, Marian, Elsie and I.
It is March 7, 1876, evening time.
Supper settles
and the gaslights communicate
their realities in mobile shadowed tones.
We are as tableaux vivants as I sign;
One word, three syllables.
All fingers and thumbs.

They give me;
full concentration
almost adoration
steadfast salivation,
As I charade my life's distraction
like a dog and bone.