An elderly man sits apprehensively 
at a dining room table set for twelve
in an old rumpled suit, wide striped tie
and wrinkled white shirt with yellow stains.

He doesn't know why he's been invited
or who else is coming.

So he sits and waits
like the patient seeing a doctor 
for the first time.

He remembers the lusty joys of his two affairs
and his wife's crushing collapse finding out,
her breast cancer

and his guilt for causing it.
He never looked back after that.

Alone, he waits for heaven or hell
wondering if it's too late for penance.