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
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
Her hands fly to her face
Touch the heat gathered there and
the salty tears leaking freely
Her voice is stayed and she stares
at him blankly, wondering 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©
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