Valentine's Meal

I have this brooding irritation.
Gut deep, it manifests as acid
That follows cold crawls of sweat,
Evidencing you under my skin.

Cowardly indefinite I decline
Valediction and circle you,
Elliptically erratic like dust -
I book a table despite me.

The journey allows us to vent,
For me to agree to drive home.
You'll have wine and cognac
I'll keep to a cliched whine.

Before we pick at the meagre
Degust of an oversold kitchen,
We amuse our mouths with bitterness
Exchanged like saliva or cum.

We spit olive stones into fingers
And order our parable, chosen
For morally bankrupt times:
Faux, pre-prepared and indulgent,

Over sauced, over seasoned and dull,
We eat and become under whelmed.
All the while all alone and encircling
Each other’s disappointments again.

Easy pickings for old crows
Covertly re-asserting their nests.