A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

—Clean—

339 Not the Poet, Not Me —Clean— Matthew Guenette There was an octopus in the fish tank nicknamed Vishnu. There were managers like lifeguards in their lifeguard chairs watching over busboys in their busboy wilderness. There were shadows of customers still sticking to the tables that had to be unstuck with lemon juice. When a customer dropped her lobster, time seizured so I turned to my daydream where the restaurant wasn’t a superfund site. There was a simple code: you could ignore the schedule & not punch out for breaks & take two hour breaks & steal beer from the coolers & get stoned on the dock as long as you covered for each other and kept the dining room under control. & when a busboy was cleaning a table his hands should resemble a hummingbird’s wings. & when the condiments were being organized a skilled busboy should spin the ketchup & shakers like pistols before holstering them in the tray. Only then in the customer’s mind would a table really be clean. ...