To Make a Living
{An Umbrella Special Feature}


Jennifer Reeser

is the author of An Alabaster Flask (2003) and Winterproof (2005), published by Word Press. Her poems, articles, and translations of French and Russian literature appear in such journals as Poetry, Botteghe Oscure, Measure, Mezzo Cammin, Pivot, and The Formalist.

Her work has received a nomination for the Pushcart, The New England Prize, the Lyric Memorial Prize, and awards from the The World Order of Narrative and Formalist Poets.  Website.


—Back to Work Poetry Contents—

At Applebee's Restaurant

The trendy chrome and cracking lilac leather
might make a mystic nervous. One might be
convinced the paisleys don’t belong together
that drape the window casings, and the tea—
too strong for dainty stomachs—stings the lips
and stains the palate. Waiters wrap damp clothes
around their waists, while waitresses—their hips
a-sway in rugged corduroy or denim—
flit past in well-worn paths, like practiced moths,
carrying clanking cups and laundered linen.
Our own is graceful, with a perfume fresh
as lemon zest. I want to ask the brand.
I want to say her manner is a mesh
of timeless things, but only brush her hand
as I reach out to take my refilled glass.
Celebrities and sports gods, hung in steel
or tin above, against some trophy bass
or buck’s rack, make reality less real.
A surly patron orders Danzig beer.
His buxom escort fidgets in her chair.
Could any act of value happen here?
The citrus scent evaporates in air.

 

From Winterproof (Word Press, 2005)



 
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