The Waitress Breaks at Midnight

You served regret with a side  

of salmon, a slow mistake  

that swam upstream in the  

throat of a stranger. Eight-tops  

wobbled against your balance,  

plates teetered like spun promises.  

He poked your cheek, his chopstick  

smile digging into the marrow.  

You don’t stretch nice thin enough  

to fit their demands. Yelp says  

you ruin weekends. Your apron  

a grave of one-star judgments.  

Before leaving, a hunger spirals.  

You chase it down dim streets,  

aching for new holes, for metal  

to chew its puckered breath into  

your skin. "Closed," the sign says.  

Behind glass, a girl wipes  

herself away with the mop,  

her fluorescent edges humming.  

Where next? You speed, frantic,  

as though grief can be run  

off the road, mistaking its face  

for the cook's sideways grin  

and his story of twisted pleasure,  

the perverse bend of need rubbed  

raw and seen. In the walk-in, you’d  

prayed for this metal silence, alone.