How could he see that group of friends again?
How could he face the shame of that Saturday night?
That faux pas he made about Shakespeare?
Sheesh!
And how he mistook Robertson Davies’s writing
for Mordecai Richler’s?
Unforgiveable.
To avoid his humiliation,
he thought to move to another city.
But he loved where he lived.
Instead, at the next book club meeting,
he apologized,
humbly regretted his errors and asked for a pardon.
But his friends hadn’t remembered his mistakes.
They had been thinking of other things,
such as what they were going to add to the conversation.
And two years later,
when he brought up the subject again,
his friends had forgotten about his apology.