Experience--Poem 3

Toasted

11:30 a.m.

We’re sitting at the bar

of a breakfast café.

The lady next to us has had

one too many mimosas,

Swaying side to side

a little-diddle,

rubbing, bumping

her fatty elbows

into my side.

You go to the bathroom--

I ask her where she’s from.

Oh-Hi-Oh

Overbearing sister

of my Ol’ Kentucky home.

I should not

have talked to her.

She reminds me

of someone.

The nasal voice,

banshee tendencies,

the alcoholic vapors.

And she’s 

asking,

asking,

asking…

Where do you go school?

I tell her where I go.

What do you do?

I tell her what I do.

Oh…

How do you make money

off of that?

I am a snail, shriveling up

inside my shell.

You return,

I scoot my bar stool

a little closer

to you.

She continues with questions.

My answers are cryptic Atlantian.

Yet you and I speak

with that fire.

Flames flickering up from the forgery

of our shared dreams.

She asks us if we have that same passion

in bed.

--Rachel Doda