main course

I’m waiting,
while you’re still checking
the menu.
The waitress, she waits,
while you flirt with her,
and the notion of
filet mignon.
My famine is slowly
diminishing and
the time is vastly dwindling.
I’m in love with
someone else,
other than myself.
Someone who refuses to be
my meal.

I place him on a silver platter,
as he places me
succinctly on the
copper grated curb.

He lives for someone
other than me.
I live for no particular
reason at all.

I know I can do better
than you and I know I
deserve better than this,
but I’m trusting my low
self esteem to
escort my self-deprecation
out to dinner.

They dash out hand in hand,
happy to be rid of me for the night.

And I will have to pay
the check in
the last course and
wind up
leaving without
dessert.

Deserted by another
lover,
the bearer of someone
else’s gifts.

The reddest of cherries stays atop
the whipped cream,
alone and
defeated.

Untouched and
uneaten.

Excusing myself from a table
of no content at all.
Amazed I got through dinner
without hungering
for you.



©2001 by Cher Ladd-Vuolo