Dave Bonta's short poem puts us at a gallery opening, but he describes it in the language of church. The crowd is "a congregation," as if art has become a kind of religion and everyone has turned up to worship. Yet the second stanza undercuts that unity: people eat together and "differ in our opinion." They share space and food, but not agreement.
The strangest image is "hands like seeing fires." The phrase is hard to pin down, but it suggests gesturing hands that look bright, restless, and almost alive, as though the talk is burning through them. The speaker seems to be watching closely rather than joining in.
The final lines turn personal. Beneath the conversation, the speaker smells "doubt and fear." Using smell makes the feeling sensed rather than reasoned out. The mood is quietly uneasy: behind the polite, confident chatter of the art crowd, the speaker detects insecurity, and perhaps shares it.