Dining Out

DINING OUT


Heady, sensuous evening warmth
Entices from familiar home dining.
The chosen outdoor venue sandwiched
Between oversized, invasive football screens
And familiar views of coloured hospital windows.
Not my preference but then I'm never asked.
Wine and trifling conversation
Awaiting selected dishes.
My compact pasta option completed
Your giant plate of predictable cholesterol
Chewed between banal interrogations.
Above the flora and fauna
A small hand clutching dancing, red balloon
Distracts my irritated mind from your
Munching on mixed heart attack platter.
Slack grip releases wanderlust balloon
I watch it soar into scudding clouds
Higher and further in a bid for freedom
Now a minute blood spot on nature’s blue canopy.
Last forkfuls of Neanderthal combinations chomped
Balloon disappears behind the rooftop clock.
Seven-forty-five precisely.
Nerves rattled by scraping of remains in sauce
I wait for the escapee’s reappearance elsewhere
Promised sign of a different life maybe.
Disappointment, like the cloud grows heavier
As the fugitive is lost from vision
Choosing to remain behind billows
Above the stratosphere or entering balloon heaven
Like the weathered worn-out dreams
I pursued earnestly in my youth.
Broken now, faded with time and disenchantment
Life not a simple, fulfilling dish of pasta
More a mixed grill of regret.