Hints in a meal of trouble, come

while bread, still warm, newly broken

abides, hidden securely between teeth

in mouths hungry for more.

Hunger assuaged, 24 clean feet and a single, haunted table.

 

Only crumbs remain,

mixed up and jumbled in pools of spilled wine.

A rumpled table top, tussled

with detritus of a meal, but laughing, flaunting its revelry

through unknowing smiles and the heavy eyelids of sleepy friends.

 

They restfully recline, sashes loosened,

bits of meat trapped in beards,

but not without gnawing whispers of

“what now?” “What next?” “When?” And in their shared memory

of goodness sense not the coming bad; the storm clouds of betrayal.

 

An ominous, stealthy breeze sneaks through the room,

slithering past befuddled hearts

and blows its dark breath from one

whose riskless love cannot match he whose riskily painted love,

soon full-flayed and dying, cannot be matched.