Pinochet and Foie Gras

The dinner was in my honour, 
he said, for the visiting Englishman. 
French exchange in eighty-eight.

Jean-Pierre's friends included 
another smallholder like him, 
a land-owning communist lawyer, 
a teacher, a builder, 
and a young woman
who'd fled from Chile.

Whatever we talked about
has eroded with time; 
if Proudhon and land-owning were aired, 
wine would have kept things light - 
our persiflage, a safer world, 
worlds away from Pinochet.

The embodiment of grief sat still, 
a tight-lipped aura we tried to include, 
to ease the discomfiture 
that she'd brought with her 
what she'd left behind.

Next morning, a shrill dawn chorus 
of shrieking, clanging pain woke me 
like an arresting knock on the door,
manhandling me out of bed.

Over breakfast, Jean-Pierre smiled, 
désolé, force-feeding, he said, 
it's cruel but necessary - 
as if an apology could ever suffice.

.