Persephone

I know I cannot escape how this evening will end; your favourite restaurant; your special table; the other diners like ghosts.  

I will sit trapped by table edge, chair pushed in too far by a waiter you call by name.  My tongue will be rough, acid in my throat, my stomach empty.  

You will talk to me as if I am an innocent: ‘Take off your coat. Are you not staying?’  I will be evasive, inconclusive.  You will hide your displeasure.  I will see your hungry glance, itemising me, imagining how I will look naked.  There will be no escape, home fading away.

‘A crying wife is a broken toy,’ you will tell me, ‘You are so refreshing.’  I will not correct you as I should. I will ignore the arrival of the glass of wine I declined.  ‘A mistake,’ you will say.

The platter of food will obviously be for two.  I will see the grease wet on your fingers and lips. ‘Come on,’ you will say; ‘eat.’

Eventually, I will place a morsel between my lips to be polite and you will have me.

‘Welcome to my world,’ you will say.