I should have left.

Graciously excused myself, said my goodnights.

This would have been appropriate.

All night you have your back turned.

I see a stretch of blue linen fabric, broad and dark,

and she, facing me, but next to you – she regards me laughingly.

I am the joke of a wife. A trophy? Not even.

She is the editor now, not I. I had my day in the sun perhaps..

One swoop of her red pen and I am gone, a mere deletion.

You make this easy.

Back to me, eyes locked on her, you give your attention undivided.

There is no union between us.

That was a figment;

A passing moment in a church.

Vows that howled through the afternoon

like lies they catch in the vault of the ceiling.

Each of them now breaks:

if you listen, you hear the wishbone snap.

Forsaking all others. Forsaking all others.

It runs through my head all evening.

What it means to forsake.

I thought your love absolute and final.

None other recognized in this way.

So simple, neat; so in love.

Yes, yes, the past had shown me otherwise,

lies lies lies

I got beyond all that.

Chalked it up to a thing I now forget –

A thing that made love possible.

That too breaks. A promise, it snaps like that.

She regards me with bright flashing eyes

reflects back your gaze I thought reserved.

A flirtation – let’s not measure how much, how little.

Let’s not quibble.

Let’s just call it what it was.

She impresses with her wares.

Tells you what you wants to hear.

Speaks to you of her half-assed and casual success.

Tells of how she too lived in France .

You can bond over this.

Did she know that this is where you host your affairs?

She could slip right in – one for the road, I say.

So what if we’re in America . Let’s role play, hey.

In one move you have reduced me -

And all night I sit. A silent, pretty doll.

Untouched, unseen. She sees, she sees…

She wins. It’s so simple.

You say, It’s not a game.

No? Then tell me what?

Don’t tell me conversation.

Don’t lie anymore.

I saw for myself.

I know what I see. I know when I am the fool.

Why I even know that glittered look in her eye,

- a quick wink and a nod.

She offers to share the blood-rich wine.

You can drink of same glass.

Intimate in this way.

Your No at that point means nothing.

She has won. I have lost.

The cost the cost the cost –

You took her in as she was.

She told you what you wanted to hear.

An old trick at that.

I can no longer pick up the pieces,

Those fragments of vows, they lay like oracle bones.

They spell out a future. Do you know what they say?

Do you really want to know? The answer is no, I know, I know.

In my mind I re-trace my misstep: this time, I gracefully exit

leave you two to each other, as it should be, another dull, cheap affair.

I hail a taxi on Madison , streak through the New York night,

Leaving all of it behind, leaving the vows at your feet

as the car slips through the rain into tomorrow.