HICK AND WILLIE DISCUSS COFFEE-TABLE BOOKS
AND DINNER GUESTS 

By James Cummins

Hick:

“Look at this new book of cow paintings. Full of bucolics,
no? It’s a genre I like to call ‘coffee-tablers’—
when you have guests, these things work like enablers
do, trying to get you to accept their alcoholics.”

Willie:

“Oh, thrilling. Tell me again why you let these people glom?
They’re kind of like ‘coffee-tablers,’ aren’t they? Places
where you can put plates of cheese? Foreign bases
you can fly back to, at a party, after you’ve bombed?”

Hick:

“Oh no, no, please—not another disquisition on drones!
Didn’t you read a book by Richard Rorty
recently? Or was that Get Shorty?
In any case, our guests don’t want your political moans.”

Willie:

“Our ‘guests’ don’t want anything that’s not about them!
They want to gush over some Venice thing,
while their country continues Dennis-the-Menace-ing
the world! Oh god, are you trundling out the broccoli again?”