8 O’clock Gourmet Club

I wish my worries would abate,
but instead they percolate.
How can I find an opiate
to calm the fears I can’t placate?
The horror of the scene’s innate,
for I cannot eradicate
the fact my cooking’s second rate.

My conscience bears a dreadful weight,
for I know that it will be my fate
to confess those weaknesses I hate.
The truth is that it‘s nearly eight,
my company at the garden gate
with appetites for me to sate,
and oh, my dears, the caterer’s late!!!!

The prompt word today was “percolate.”