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The Majority of Diners Continue Eating

By Robert Siek
Spring 2022 | Poetry

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.

Robert Siek is the author of the poetry collections Purpose and Devil Piss and We Go Seasonal, both published by Sibling Rivalry Press. He lives in Brooklyn and works as a production editor at a large publishing house in Manhattan.


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