Rivulets

she was terribly hungry. 
and she wasn’t a pronoun
not a euphemism for that girl,
not an antecedent in hiding,
not a tally for feminism,
not a manifestation
of anything other than a place
to store waffles,
and she did.
fluorescent lighting harsh
like her eye contact,
a prayer for a dimmer switch basking
in the bottom of every bottomless cup
of coffee
--a euphemism indeed.
she was alone
often alone
shaking with laughter and unease
saying things like
“I’ve lost my style.”
they ask, “How is
everything?”
and she finds that
an impossible question to answer.


expressway blues echo.
later, a train will croon
and it settles into her like a knife
into soft wood
the idea that everywhere is somewhere
people traveling as hopes do:
at the mercy of delays and cancellations.
the only map she can see confirms that she is,
in fact,
here
ordering seconds
of time and of hashbrowns
her eyes alight like the pre-dawn sky.
the grey-blues soften as the sounds in her head do,
internal silence reaching equilibrium
with that of the world at this hour.
counting the number of syllables in the word
“longitudinally,”
she makes Olympic rings out of water circles
and peace with expectations.
she notes that she's only ever seen
one Heinz variety
and that this linoleum booth is no harder
than it is to say goodbye.