The Art of It

By Kelly Gray

Most of the people in the restaurant

have cancer. The waitresses have been hired

to float their soft palms across scalps

as they walk down aisles pouring soup

with too much butter because it is too late

to care about anybody’s heart.

Better to offer dry lips the sweet fat

from beasts milked in agony

with machines unable to grip like a hand

built for digging a grave for my Auntie.

She knew when to pack up her easel.

When to tip the waitstaff her life savings,

her wig having taken up with the bad habits

of pink ribbon bumper stickers meant to placate

the unplacatable. When all the plates

have been set instead of bowls, leaving the soup

to pool beneath the feet of the baldheaded patrons.

That’s when she left, thin at last, she whispered,

and I grieved for the whole fat mass of her.

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Photo by J. Lee