Infidel

The taste of ash in my mouth, the fragile, smoking bitterness you laid upon my tongue – really nothing more needs to be said, but here it is: the tin and iron probing of a tongue for a tooth no longer there, the quick but too-late drawing back of a hand from the scorching pan, the scars that maddeningly linger down the years for such a brief mistake…

You meant those words – the ones you said to me in front of everyone and the ones you whispered to him – it was the pretending that you could have both and be one lover that caught you out.

If you read the old stories, you can perhaps fancifully imagine your own dark bargain there -- picture yourself as helpless (as you do) – on a hot night among a thousand others: those few coins might have meant a passage away from the misery you yourself inflicted -- in some way, a fevered kind of salvation, even in betrayal.

I am not here to judge; it was worth it to you, that’s the main thing. Was it ordained, as you so obviously believed? I mean, of course not, but I nevertheless understand the tantalizing glint, how sweet the compulsion must have seemed:

Such seeming profit for a simple kiss on the cheek.

But what was left in the clear morning light, the heat of another sweltering misery among many, now you find yourself alone and naked as your ruse? 

The taste of ash, and nothing more.

At least nothing important. 

But I’ve already said that.