Precise Tomato Orientation and Other Poems

Precise Tomato Orientation

Used napkin thrown at my neck. Wet.
A man’s talon in my shoulder. Hot breath.
Remember to be kind. Every customer. Smile
within twenty feet, greet within ten,
engage in five. Each garden salad is plated
with two cherry tomatoes on the rim
and each plate is to be set in identical
orientations, tomatoes at four o’clock.
This is a corporate retreat for people
who care deeply about inkjet printing.
This is a funeral for the leader of a religion
some say is a cult. This is a wedding
full of polka fanatics, a post-meet feast
for lanky teen swimmers, a holiday party
for wild-eyed men sneaking moonshine.
This is a seminar where men in safety vests
are shown security footage of coworkers
blasted apart by trains. Nobody eats
their tomatoes and in the back I loft them
to A, who swings a beer bottle and connects,
line drive to the door of the walk-in cooler,
which is broken, and doesn’t cool.
Simply an uncool room with a fancy silver door.
This could be a metaphor for something,
but in this building rain falls through the roof
and waterlogs the ceiling tiles,
streams down from can lights, pools near wires.
Dirty napkins tap dance on broken glass
and black mold crawls down the walls.
So I try not to think about metaphors very much.
When I do see a metaphor, I smile at it within
twenty feet, greet it within ten, and if it
gets within five, I swing at it with a beer bottle.