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All You Can Eat

It was all-you-can-eat mussels Monday.

Vintage wallpaper, reminiscent of pulled-down mite-filled plaster in college town apartments of our youth,

Hovered over our table.

I sat and looked at that wallpaper, 

Diamonds of turquoise outlined with  gold fleur-de-lis’,

Truly ugly, but magical in this hidey-hole restaurant.

Laughing, eating mussels, breaking the record of bowls ordered, 

Silly, full and sinfully contemplating another round, he said,

You know I’ve been thinking about this lady I’m working with, 

I think there’s more to it,

And I want to be open to pursue it.

He said that as I decided the wallpaper was going to be permanently indelible in my mind's eye,

Just as the taste of garlic lamb wine sauce would smack of rejection,

Innocent mussels cut off the floor of the ocean or riverbed or wherever the fuck they lived 

Their fucking happy lives 

Before they came to bear witness to his

Emotional infidelity.

Not bound to her, under no obligation except friendship and the sharing of a bed winding down a six-year love affair, 

They had settled in a coupling

Monogamous and exclusive

Knowing he wanted to flee.

Time again his scorpion sting 

Would make a break but grandiose ideals

Faded

And he’d return,

She’d take him back,

And they’d sit and watch Jeopardy by the artificial fireplace 

Battery candles flicker

And fruit flies flutter. 

They’d sit in an embrace not sat before in all their geriatric years,

His arm around her 

Her back against him

His hand cupping her breast 

Without intentions,

Stomachs too full from a meal. 

Here though tonight with the mussel shells piled  

The sauce glistening greasy on the dark wood table,

Concrete floor abstract art in grey,

He said he had to see where it led.

She keenly took notice of its similarity

To the designer scarf

Around his neck.

Is there a way to let the air out of your soul so many times 

That it no longer can be filled again?

Flaccid?

She came all the time. 

Over and over,

The first man to ever do that,

Their lovemaking thick and drenching

Never quite done

An endless series of toss and tumbles

Until the time he said 

It’s not you it’s me. 

You mean I'm not the you you need me to be?

So yea it is me?

Staring at hideous mid-century colors

Eating mussels my mid-century parents brought me up on

Being dumped by a mid-century born bald man

To pursue an un-shareable dream

I was never invited to dream.