[From Poetry: A Magazine of Verse vol. XVIII, no. 5, August 1921, pp. 282-283. The poem appears on the recto page; facing verso carries a short poem by Louise Bogan and a shorter one by Edwin Arlington Robinson.]

AT A DINNER

M. Varrick

The coffee is not warm enough. The sugar Is good. A man across is speaking Of Philadelphia as though Philadelphia Had been the subject. It has not been.

The subject, which has no place at this table Except in the light on one woman's hair, Is the particular angle at which light Meets the particular shoulder of a woman

Who is not my sister, and who will not look up From the silver fork with which she is addressing A lamb chop whose juices the china is grateful for. The lamb is good. The light is good. The good

Is ordered variously around a table on which The subject does not sit. One eats around it. One lifts the napkin, one sets it back down, One refuses the second offer of the claret,

One turns one's chair in the direction of the man From Philadelphia, who is my husband's guest And who has a kind face and a small idea, And one does not look toward the hair, or the

Shoulder, or the light. One has learned, at thirty, The geography of a table on which one loves Someone one will not touch; and one has learned Also, at thirty, that the geography is a lake

In which one may sit, perfectly, for an evening, Holding one's chair very still, holding one's gaze Upon the pepper-mill, holding one's cough When it threatens, holding everything but

The napkin in one's lap, which is permitted To have a trembling of its own. Under the cloth Where it may tremble, under the cloth where The hand is permitted its small liberty,

The napkin has trembled its way to being A crumpled thing, a linen ball, a parchment Written in a dialect of the body that the body Cannot read aloud. The dinner will end at ten.

The woman will get up. The woman will shake The host's hand and cross my hand in the shake. I will say good evening. I will say it in my Ordinary voice. I will not say the dialect

I have been writing into the napkin in my lap. I will fold the napkin. I will place it on the plate. I will stand up. I will go. I will go home And the napkin will stay, unread, for a servant

To take to the laundry in the morning, where A woman who is not my husband's wife Will iron it flat with the others, and return it To the linen press, where my language will rest

Among the rest of the evening's linen, unfound, Unfolded, for a season or two, until it is next Laid across the table at a dinner at which The light, again, will do what the light does.

[Appearing with five other "M. Varrick" poems across four issues of Poetry 1919-1923. None of the poems have been anthologized or reprinted. The editor of Poetry, Harriet Monroe, corresponds with "M. Varrick" through a post box in Chicago which "M. Varrick" maintains on a small annual rental; Ms. Monroe does not know "M. Varrick's" true name. "M. Varrick" has declined Ms. Monroe's three invitations to visit the magazine's office.]

[Harriet Westbrook, who was given the August 1921 issue by a Smith classmate in September of that year, has read "At a Dinner" seventeen times over three years. She has never told anyone she has read it. She has never told Adela Thorpe she has read it. Adela has never told Harriet she wrote it. The pseudonym "M. Varrick" — Adela's maiden name — is not a difficult code. Harriet has held the knowledge for three years and has not used it.]