After the Dinners You Could Not Make: A Glosa - Crista Fusaro

After the Dinners You Could Not Make

by Crista Fusaro

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair

I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool. I don’t care.

The head does its best but the heart is the boss-

I admit it before I am halfway across.

-from Wendy Cope’s “After the Lunch”

I look down at the wild water.

Scarlet fishes and slaughter.

Clandestine movement ceases.

Water: pleading and in pieces.

But I am tempestuous and tired too.

You were never able to grow a pair.

You. You. You. The forbidden treat.

Seated on your thorny throne of deceit.

Still, I wait for the continuation of our affair,

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair.

Is this what persistence implies?

Maybe I should have listened to the dark skies.

Can you bring the souvenirs from this fling?

Half-lit candles and that discounted ring.

Collected knick-knacks that I secretly cherished.

I search the water for your stare.

Is that your reflection in the river?

Or another waiting for you to forgive her?

No, it is the surfacing of your words that I bear:

I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool. I don’t care.

I am the martyr who did not die.

I could not give that last goodbye.

I am here. It is 3:32.

I am not through.

(You’re not coming, are you?)

I am the mind absent of moss.

I am the perpetrator of treason.

I have forsaken reason.

I remain an incorrigible foreigner to loss.

The head does its best but the heart is the boss-

Fool me once, shame on who?

Fool me twice, shame on you.

Is this the slaughter of naïveté?

I am done waiting. I do not need you to stay.

I was numbed by that first feeling.

I should have known the cost.

It begins to rain. I forgot my umbrella.

You are not here to shush my acapella.

When the water stills I see the sign: you were the dross.

I admit it before I am halfway across.