You Tell Yourself
Sara Wallace
the orange juice in its small glass is enough
the birdsong outside is enough
folding the pillow cases
stacking them neatly on the clean shelf
setting the table
dripping bacon the napkin’s smooth face
the wince of traffic far below
almost out of earshot
this mound of berries this small dark bowl
indifferently you toss the toast on the table
like the gesture of that waitress at the diner
where twelve years ago
you kept kissing a man
and no stares under the washed-out fluorescents
could stop you
vodka and salt on his tongue
his rough hand through your gauzy shirt
sooty and hot as a tailpipe
sweet-rotten sweat slicking his skin
like night blooms by the diner’s open door
Sara Wallace is the author of The Rival (selected for the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize) and the chapbook, Edge (selected for The Center for Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Competition). Her poetry has appeared in such publications as Agni, Hanging Loose, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry Daily, Yale Review and others. A recent finalist for a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, she is a recipient of a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and fellowships from the Virginia Center of the Creative Arts and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She currently teaches at New York University and lives in Brooklyn.