TOM DVORSKE
It’s not the biscuits and gravy nor the plastic
menu of this diner that brings you to mind.
Though I remember you in the booth next
to me, coy looks that hid—not too well—
what you never wanted to admit to yourself.
It’s not you in that booth but her face is yours.
I want to ask her if her life is still possible.
I’m not looking for revenge.
I don’t care how you’d look at me now,
or if you even still think of me. I’m certain
of the answer and it brings no feeling. I call
her your name. She looks at me as at an accident.
I insist she’s you. She assures me, no. I tell her
I would have left her anyway, better that she
moved out the weekend I was out of town
visiting my friend in the state hospital.
She grows hostile, asks for the check and tells
me to fuck off. That I don’t understand a thing
about how she feels, or about what she’s gone
through. Moreover, that I’ve got the details
all wrong. She didn’t move out. I did. The U-haul
pulling away as she returned from her weekend
at the lake. I start to think I’m imagining this.
She reminds me that it was I who contrived
our cohabitation. It was I who assumed
that through my gratuitous gestures of love
she would see that I was meant for her. She
says things don’t work this way, and that I
may as well forget about it because if I don’t
want anything, then why am I even asking?
I tell her I thought she was someone else.