Instead

I thought:

I could simply get up and walk out,

stand up and push my chair back, 

pick up my purse and stride away

without a word or glance at him, 

leaving him in mid-sentence,

feeling the curious eyes and 

hearing the murmured whispers

as I passed each table, tucking my hair

behind my ear, my eyes on a point

just past my seeing, steady on heels

because I am concentrating - 

what would look more foolish

than a stumble - 

smiling weakly the maitre d'hotel 

and pressing a five into the

doorman's palm as I pass through

into the cool evening air.

I could breathe it in, fill my lungs

and walk fourteen blocks to the pier, 

then another quarter-mile onto a

finger pointing accusingly at the sea.

I could fold my arms on the rail

and let the moon pour into the diamond 

on my finger, fan my fingers out, wiggle them

so the pearly light sparks and winks

as the stone grew heavier and heavier,

filling with years of accumulating dread.

I could tug the ring off - easily, because my

finger is not used to it yet - and let it drop

and sink to the seabed. In thirty years, I could

read a newspaper article, when I am living on 

the Eastern Shore, or Nova Scotia, 

about a fisherman who caught a perch 

and cut it open to find a

seventy-two-carat diamond ring inside, and I'll

laugh and shake my head and say to myself,

Of all the luck.