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62 A meAl noT eATen “Somewhere there’s an uneaten Chinese dinner with our name on it.” —Overheard The wonton soup drifts in warm fog just out of reach. dragons circle the bowl as if to guard the one pink shrimp that bobs like a dead monster-from-the-deep. steam wisps off the twice-cooked pork and chopped bok choy. The emperor’s Chicken is here too: sliced peppers, red and green; black mushroom-gongs; white meat glistening in glaze.We feed each other between kisses, screened by our red leather booth, ignoring vines that loop and dangle overhead, the waiters gliding back and forth, so unobtrusive it’s as if platters fly solo through the air. one floats toward us, bearing orange-halves offered in their bowls of pebbled skin. fortune cookies’ brittle purses enfold futures that, like this past, never occurred. i didn’t pay the bill, open her door, or drive her to my house, where we never 63 made love in this bed where i lie now, in which i can almost touch her, asleep beside me as my wife, though she is not, and hasn’t been for a long time. ...

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