“The Old Dollhouse” by Kristine Nowak

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The tables in the pavilion have been lavishly set
for over sixty years. Pink napkins
folded into bead-sized holders, goblets
that could hold a single drop—dozens

of tiny chairs tucked under the edges
of tables covered with neat white handkerchiefs.
Under the tinsel and ribbon chandelier, the musicians’
empty seats are a semi-circle around a music stand,

the foil instruments laid down alongside.
Bottles chill in beads of glass, a fountain
of clear plastic cascades into a blue pool
at the center of the room. Each table is lit

with an intimate circle of yellow lamplight
as if it were always soft and early evening—
which must be, itself, a kind of paradise:
this perpetual sense of a small moment

about to crack open—that, any second,
the instruments will be lifted, the door
and the wine opened, and then
the guests will begin to arrive.

-Kristine Nowak

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