Cafeteria

2024
For on certain days,
when your heart beats
                                        with an unusual cadence
and your hands, wrists, forearms    
                                        tremble so that the prongs
make for a futile spoon-attempt to eat spring medley—

You look deep into the eyes of someone that
               has reflexively eaten their salad across the hall
brimming with an unabashed and
                                                    automated satisfaction,
as if they have reached the
                             nominal end of some nominal journey
For which you blame perhaps a sharper fork or
                                               the rapidity of consumption


As for me, I don’t think such stasis has generously
given me the time or the laminated certificate

For on certain nights,
I wake up to the pounding
                                            of masses of roaches within
looking for a dollar or a place to stay,
                                    yet all my things remain in my room
to offer me some continuity

I have this spoon in some drawer somewhere,
                            second-hand hemoglobic scent
I think of all the mouths it has seen,
                        the hands exchanged over years,
and the calcified remnants of an apple tart


And if you can’t finish the salad,
                              can you hold onto your seat?