Dining

Will I pay the check, I wonder
while you’re in the restroom or somewhere
risen to leave me to ponder
if I will pay the check.

Scatterings on this white-clothed table
and a squirt left of wine in each glass;
butter but no bread, the waiter
admiring his nails.

I will pay, I say to myself
but I will still owe someone somewhere;
for I have dined and not paid
a hundred or more times,

and my kindness to you
is no more than the dregs of the wine.

*

After reading Robert Creeley, "For Love in the Selected Poems:  "Can I eat/what you give me. I/have not earned it. Must/I think of everything//as earned...."

...dedicated to the many I still owe dinner to.