A Business Lunch With Aristotle

If I were an excellent friend
I would stare at your face without blinking
I'd watch the shades fall from your eyes
And softly listen to thoughts unsaid

I'm boisterous though and rude
I interrupt. Somersaulting worlds
Roll into our soup. Telling and asking
Are part of the same breath.

You are a friend of utility
Lunching with a friend of pleasure
I determine you should laugh
Like a project completed, you deliver.

I cannot satisfy you like the soup
I cannot be piquant or velvet
I eat chicken with my fingers and notice
You do this as if forks were uninvented.

"A great soup," I say, and you smile
You chose it, you conceived the moment
Hacked it out of routine and shaped it
Into hard rock for grabbing in harder times.