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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. 

 

 

A Good Box It Was

 

Cardboard remnants 

                               of past lives,

Strewed in hallways

                              of crowded sentiments.

Reluctant,

                              yet expectant

of earned places

                              to be found,

she caresses the cellulose caskets

of long ago purchases,

                             and emperor thumbs down it all.

                             Except, maybe one.

Maybe, that one,

                              Because,

that one,

                             was, still,

a really good box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heart Torn Symmetry

 

You tore my heart in half

Folded it first

And ripped it

For symmetry.

My equally divided heart

In each of your hands

Slips slowly

To the floor

Where you stomp on it,

Jump up

and

down

on it,

Do a little dance

On it,

Get down tonight,

Smashing it

Like a spent cigarette.

But you pick it up,

Oh my,

To flap jack it

into a

Butter churn

Where you

pulverize it

painstakingly

to butter,

Drawing it out

With a knife

You slather it on

A cracker

And eat it.

 

FAIR DAY: Flight of the Balloon

 

Fair day came, she was all a flutter, 

A day in the fun with just her mother. 

Her conveyance, a stroller, umbrella and cramped, 

Held her restrained, hunched over, encamped 

Into transport too small, 

Her limbs overnight, too tall. 

 

Wiggling in the straps when she saw the balloons, 

She pulled to chase them in the air as they zoomed, 

Lookie, lookie, she cries, a pretty one gone up to the sky! 

Oh, the waste of the money, oh the waste of a five. 

I want one, Mommy, I want one of my own. 

I'll get you one daughter, when we have to go home. 

 

Their money was spent on games of chance, 

Winning a few, but really, just losing the cash. 

She rode the small rides, Mommy's face flashing by, 

Yet, always in her mind, the balloon, how it would fly. 

The day got late, 

They made their way to the gate. 

 

Mommy bought the balloon, purple, shining, and big, 

She placed the precious string in the palm of her kid. 

When her little hand reached for the sky to let it go, 

Mommy clamped her big paw down and startled with a, No! 

You can let it go at the house, but not at the fair. 

Five dollars isn’t meant for a brief little affair. 

 

And-the wailing began, and it ceased to desist 

Until the van brought them home, at Mommy's insist. 

Inside their abode, on that hot autumn day, 

The little girl wiped all her tears away. 

She let it go finally, sailed the balloon to the ceiling, 

It hit...it bounced gaily...in a....loud...latex...killing. 

  

They stood in the shards of the rubberized sphere, 

Purple joy dissolved swiftly into synchronized tears. 

Mommy held her daughter closely, 

Asked her forgiveness, mostly, 

For not letting a toddler's whim 

Become the greater wisdom. 

 

To have watched that balloon fly. 

To have stood, fixed to that sky. 

To have let it all go in that moment,  

Let it all go-unbroken. 

Let it go, there- 

In the flight of a balloon, you bought at the fair. 

 

 

 

Painting the Walls

 

Painting toilet paint on the walls,

She wreaks havoc in the halls,

A basting brush and a handy source of water,

A commode to me, but to a granddaughter...

A magic, glimmering, bucket of paint.

Oh, say it ain't,

Oh say it ain't so,

She's painting toilet water 

on the walls.