The Majority of Diners Continue Eating

Try balancing on one leg while peeing in the urinal

of a restaurant restroom when no one is watching

then return to a table to try out a new exercise:

list the first five words that capture that scenario

and ignore the waiter’s ass and the fit of his pants,

his handheld pot of coffee, quite possibly a weapon.

Choose to read closed captions on the closest TV set,

one of a dozen flat screens suspended over diners,

a funhouse hall of mirrors set free upon explosion,

a pack of playing cards emptied for 52 pickup—

where they landed, we now eat beneath them.

A news broadcast announces a breaking story,

a school shooting in a state that starts with an M,

you sigh before chewing a piece of buttered bread.

What words can be recycled, cut free from a menu?

Stick a fork in your thigh and call it an issue.

Smile at the smoker coughing outside the window.

A stranger seated nearby tells herself she’s crying,

like Siri joined mankind, then ate a handful of Valium.