I would give anything just to sit down to dinner
at a restaurant tonight
my friend and I are texting each other from our apartments
blocks away
I miss oysters too
glasses of champagne
even a table for one
on a Tuesday night, deviled eggs
each one a gift
passed from dozens of hands to mine
the farmer upstate
who surely misses a bottle of wine
now, sitting down for dinner
and the truck driver dreaming about pulled pork
from a place he knows to stop at
off I-87, south into the city
where a thousand line cooks dream
about after work shift drinks
steady paychecks
the bread they used to make
and the bartender, twirling an empty coup glass
in her kitchen missing that girl
who used to come sit at the bar alone
who ordered anything to drink
but always deviled eggs.
Keri Smith grew up in Florida then saw the world playing in punk bands. She has her MFA in Poetry from the New School, and her first book, Dragging Anchor, was published by Hanging Loose Press in 2018. She works as a bartender in Brooklyn and can often be found at Rockaway Beach with her chihuahua.
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