Hungry Again in Camelot
If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill,
as God as my witness,
I'll never be hungry again!
--Scarlett O’hara, Gone With the Wind.
I press my fingers to the steel
wool to feel the cold, elastic
cheese snapping back into the black
olive sludge of sausage and sauce
caking the sink and my fingers.
Each scrape echoes the seconds lost
to the stacking of steel pans that will need
washing again before the tables are stripped
of their transparence and the trash
rests as empty as my stomach.
While I wash I’m lost to staring
at the pizza crust crucified
by dried cheese by-products
to the rusted, white time-
clock on the wall lacerated
by my knife from when I charged the wall
interest for Mauricio’s lies
of five-fifty-five an hour and dreams
of management and dishwater blondes,
lost to releasing grease and cheese
abandoned by customers for the eternal
bells and buzzers of pinball and Donkey
Kong and the killing of aliens and time
lost with their silver moon quarters
slipping into the subconscious sleep
of prepubescent miniature-golf fantasies
set to numb the nausea of fear,
Camel lights, and American
Spirits sucked until the fingers are also worn
numb and browned as the bubbling cheese,
our hardened hearts, or the dirt time melts us into.
Alone under a leaking ring
of oozing pepperoni moon,
I tightly twist the night-
black trash bag spilling tiny stars
of cheese as firm as my faith
that midnight will soon find us
sleepless, slapping time clocks, each others
hands, and golf balls onto freeways
until the cops send us sprawling
home like hell to yelling diamond-
ringed preachers on late-night TV
selling heaven and foretelling
our eventual descent.
But what the hell
do these perverse purveyors of wrinkle-removing
miracle creams and hair-restoring holy waters,
O, what do they know of our lonely Camel-breathing lot,
together reaching eternally into the flames
still slithering from ovens’ iron jaws, for fake
pizza cheese we’ll never taste stuck to red,
rusted steel pans, scraping wasted
time melting into liquid days,
stolen nameless seasons slipping
with every molten, plastic cheese
strand devoured by the black
gaping garbage disposal lips
letting loose a robust belch to carry
up our prayers for pardons
from this pizza counter purgatory.
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