Could I Have That To Go? Poem by Glenn Latal

Her steam starched, water whitened, raw reddened hands
smelled of bluefish and clean pots hot and drying.
One hip cocked, unwantonly saucy,
her pen approaches pad as though taper to votive candle.
With pensive regard, this Madonna awaits
my confession of what private appetite tortures me.
This dance of dropped wing, shaken head,
elevated eyebrow, glance over shoulder retort
has been shared every day by countless cowardly unsinning fools
for as long as there have been diners.

Wishing we could rise and reach and pull against.
A tango erupts from the miraculously full throated juke.
We’ve all seen the others fade
as the light falls toward the center
till there is nothing but each other’s eyes.
Breath yanked and shoved, her hand so smooth and warm,
the layered cloth sliding across the small of her back.

She turns, tears off the sheet
and skewers my hunger with all the others.
My gaze drops from her shoulder along her spine
and is flung off her hip.
House lights up, show’s over.
I stir my coffee.