Not Still Life

I excuse myself from the dinner table as the hostess serves dessert. I head for the bathroom and find the tap running.
Everything has a place here, the objects
are neatly arranged. Everything is visibly clean, the surfaces
reflect the tidiness in all rooms.
The running tap reminds me of all that eludes the hostess and it finds a kindred in me - I can see more of me in the open tap than in the mirror above it.
I feel thirsty. And I smile to the face in the mirror, displaced by the babble of the evening but redeemed by this unexpected gush.
The face in the mirror disappears as my mouth rushes to the running tap, gulping the flowing water.