Waffle House, 2am
I’m not sure that everything I’ve done hasn’t been a lie, but
your unintelligible clamor speaks well of the lives of all men.
If I am honest, I will see possible futures for me and my children
in your toothless mouth. I sit next to a man who buys you breakfast
and the three of us silently watch our eyes turn red around the edges
as you eat without eating. How was the coffee? You’ve had better,
but it’s alright, s’pose. Rend your waffle in quarters like kleenex
and offer me sausage patties when the woman behind the counter
says, “One good turn deserves another,” as she refuses to
charge an ex-Marine, living off of plasma and sleeping on a couch,
for his hashbrowns. Her eyes don’t flinch. Not at all.
The boxer sitting across from you doesn’t know what to say,
and apparently never does, and he too survives on his own blood,
and prophecies about a blossoming heart. I wonder, sir,
I just wonder, if the salt in my eyes is real.
Do you think anything I’ve ever said was true?
