cocktail hour

china mugs decorate the ironed linens
thrown over yesterday's craft tables and poker games
today's damasked truth shelves, love platters
surfaces of sincere sauvignon blanc
poured into long stem glasses
open mouths
smiling at the chastity
swimming in the lemon glaze
gliding over cakes stacked on platters
in an attempt to construct
growing old together to become wrinkled
columns of perfumed flesh
eggshell fingertips, white asparagus eyebrows
dripping with powers highballs
clinging to the true adventure of love
falling into mason jars
wine-soaked tumbling onto a highway
waltzing to jazz from the saxophone sunshine

growing old to enjoy bran
in matching porcelain bowls
sunday morning discussing diction and futball scores
longing for sawdust afternoons,
evenings spent pretzel twisting into chandeliers
floating over linen sheets and automobile seats
wrapping love in european scarves
and street vendor pizza boxes

Jillian Towne is a Junior at Champlain College. She is in the Professional Writing major, and as such has taken classes in fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and journalism. Jillian has mentored at the Champlain College Young Writer's Conference for the past two years, and also holds the position of Assistant to the Professional Writing Program. She is looking forward to continuing to explore the writing electives that Champlain has to offer, and is excited to start a writing internship her senior year.

In the summer I have the privilege of working for a lovely little catering company called Spoonful Catering, in my Upstate New York hometown. Being at weddings always makes me think about love, marriage, the concept of growing old together, and waking up next to the same person for the rest of time. It also makes me wonder what is lost, and how love changes and grows with time. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter. I wrote this during the Advanced Poetry Workshop this past spring semester, and it is part of a chapbook of food-themed poems that I put together during that class.

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