Farewell

A meeting with an ex.

Tablecloths and flowers on each table

Not our usual kind of place

He took me out one year

To a cheap restaurant I liked

Because he had a coupon.

He told me this, as if I’d like to know

He has a job in a supermarket, a step up from endless

Job fairs and low effort conversations with

Potential employers.

We sit and the prices on the menu are more

Than the fare we ate last month, pizza and fries

With his friends, before I left.

He’s generous. Order anything, don’t worry about the cost, he tells me.

He disparages a friend of his, the same man-boy he told me

Not to argue with. Now it’s acceptable. I like this version

Of my three weeks gone ex-boyfriend. He speaks only a little

Of his role playing games, his weekends when sitting

In an empty room with aging social misfits

Pretending to be a fantasy creature of vibrant life.

He says he will never get over me. I hope he’s wrong.

He says the same about his previous ex. She told him

To return to school. I said we wanted different things.

It was a kindness to a thirty-year-old adolescent.

He chuckles as he tells me of his grandmother. She said

He should have married me while he could. The old woman

Was right. I smiled from the other side of the table, peering around

The vase of orchids on the table. We finish, he pays, leaving

A generous tip. I step into the April sunshine and drive my GMC

To the man who sees me and loves me back.