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Tables
Senior year, sixteen, balancing trays
of steak and beer to take to fat, drunk men.
Rancid women hissed steam, blamed me
for their children’s boredom and fickle tastes.
Strangers clamored to be fed and cleaned.
They complained, howled,
smacked my rear end, called me sweetie.
They left me five-dollar bills,
often sliding them into my hip pocket
with sly self-congratulation.
Closing shifts were a blur
of broom handles and kitchen clatter.
The stench of day’s-end fish
swaddled my swollen ankles.
Grease seeped into my skin, turned me gray.
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(illustration by John Kim)
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At home, ten o’clock, I did homework
under desklight, studied trigonometry circles
in my name tag and stained shirt.
I drew lines, planted dots on graphs,
plotted my days into an arc, eased and pointed
toward an unnamed freedom,
charting a better path, a way out.
Christine DeSimone
Blue Collar Review, Spring 2004
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