bahijra

pushes
a little cart
table to table
busing dishes.

i’ve watched her
a thousand times.
don’t know why
but for the first time
i see her
as a
sexual entity.

heavy
through flank
but a bright
kind face

she has no ring.
i wonder
if she’s
one of the bosnians
whose husband
died in the war.

she has
a gentleness

as if the venality
and bloodletting chorus
of the world
are poison to her.

this makes
my heart
reach out
across the diner.

i ask myself
if i could
be true to her.

no.

i would
piss cold rain
on her heart

like all
the rest.

by Justin Hyde