I’d already ordered & eaten

Wrong eggs brought to me by the waitress

Who felt like loneliness

I mean who must’ve

Felt my loneliness,

Hovering then filling

Space with wrapped silverware—

Irene is late to the diner

& will barge in with some bohemian

Flustered headwear: You will never believe

& the waitress will walk over

& I will be ashamed of how long it takes

My friend to order—

Talking about men, something like

I’ve been rethinking love—

As I cross and uncross my legs under the table,

Feet so blistered from my interview shoes

Where I’d tried to dab blood off my ankles in

This morning’s corporation’s

Staff bathroom

Caught red-handed!

At night, I am mess-

Aging around:

Internet dating app strange men who’ve disappeared:

Come back! I’d love to meet you now.

XXX

Philip Philip Philip

When I was eleven

My mother sent me down to befriend

Two rich girls from the cul-de-sac where,

Sneaking through someone’s garden porch-lit,

Allie took a hunting knife from her back pocket

& cut the neighbor’s daffodils

Irene

Will ask about Philip—how’s your

Librarian? If I’m

Still trying to be in love with him

When I went home I told my mother on the girls,

And while making me

Scrub my dirty feet in the bath, she shook her head

If you want those girls to like you—

Every waitress is me

When I was a waitress

And Irene is still not here but the loneliness

I mean this waitress wants to

Check me

Out at the diner

I Google shame

Google my own name Google

P.S.: Philip is

XXX

Waning, leaning like

Some beautiful grieving—

P.P.S.:

Want to button him

Like a carnation, wear us out

I’ve been interviewed

Every morning this week. Walking home

With shoes in hand, thinking about

Who I’ve been bare-

Foot with: in a church basement, the back

Of my mother’s Subaru,

On a trampoline after losing a bet, so desperate sneaking

Into each other’s bedrooms too young

To tell our bodies apart—and by bodies I mean

Maybe I should start

Waitressing again—stash the fireproof box

Under the bed, with my birth certificate, the emergency

Crumpled money, sit

On the floor and listen

To my mother’s voicemails

Dabbing on wrists

Her perfume