Tonight's Poet Corner: Final Date

Final Date
by Belinda Roddie

The last place where you met up with me,
the sun was setting on the rim of a neon
martini glass, and we were eyeing the
speakeasy across the street, where the
barkeeps wore vermouth on their vests
and the lamps were dimmed to mouthfuls
of vermilion shame between sips of champagne.

You were so beautiful in white frills and pearls,
while I wore my best black suit over a cheap
blue polo, and when we slipped down rickety
stairs, we heard jazz, but only in our heads,
not on actual strings or worn down keys.

I was almost willing to take you back - almost.
But that was before you opened your lips
again, and before you regaled me with your
personal conspiracies - conspiracies I had
been privy to too many times before. Theories
of death that hit too close beneath the ribcage,
rattling cartilage, threatening delicate threads
of a tapestry that I wasn't willing to let fray.

And by the time I got back in my car,
I could barely see your reflection in the sideview
mirrors - mostly due to the cobwebs - mostly
due to the dust and gravel kicked up from barely
preserved freeway lines - mostly due to your
visage blending into pink neon and frugal
red lighting, lips open, tongue exposed, but
no more diatribes, at long last, drunkenly
staggering out to meet their maker.