OVER DINNER

Somewhere between the cheesecake

And the devils on horseback

They revisit a topic best left alone

The evening begun with such promise —

fine wine, crisp linen, dimmer switch low

music soft and tasteful; kitchen 
smells scrumptious—

Rapidly deteriorates, spins with 
concentric determination

Down, down, down — to the dark place

Becoming all too familiar to them both

She feels if she stretches her arms out,

Her hands will feel  cold, damp—

No, not damp —slimy —slimy, wet walls

And she knows the walls will be closing

in on them, on her

He, on the other hand, feels as if the ground

is disappearing beneath their feet

That the more they talk, the less real his world

is becoming

Until soon it and he, will become entirely weightless

He knows there will be no keeping him grounded

That his drifting away from her will have

the permanence of death

Still – try as they might to quell them,

bitter words, crisp as alum, fall from their lips

Spill like old blood on the empty china plates

Plinking like coins, each one louder,

uglier than the last

She feels her hands fly to her face

Touches the heat gathered there and

the salty tears leaking freely

Her voice is stayed and she stares

at him blankly, wondering again, again

How is it they have arrived at this place...

The silence gathers like snowdrifts,

catches his ear

He stops to listen, stares into her leaking eyes

They stretch their hands towards each other

Grasping for some remnant of their love,

Her lips tremble with the absurdity

Of the notion that they may try

This staying together thing  another time;

How can she consider the idea

For even a second, when they both come

From such vastly different places,

Remember such very different pasts

She tries to remind herself how badly

He rewrites her history

How embellishment is one thing but now,

Every recital  of her transgressions

Has her growing more evil, less well

Then, tonight – oh my God – tonight

She’d almost forgotten that they’d

actually opened

Old-new wounds, some things she’d believed

scarred over

Were apparently never fully slashed apart

in the first place

The fact of the fiction has her feeling surreal

She can't tell which way is up, north, down, east

Her discombobulation so great, she feels

physically unwell

How could her memory be this faulty?

Could she really be this far off the mark?

She feels demented – she knows she's

subject to sadness

And bouts of mania – but demented?

Does she also have to accept that?

Dementia seems such an

old person’s thing...besides

She couldn’t be wrong

about all of her history, could she?

S.E.Ingraham©

2008

(re-written 04.3.09)

rewritten again 12.05.01