Obituaries Found on Backs of Cocktail Napkins

                                                             ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM

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her fake nails
are the length of crickets,
curved and embossed
with innocuous glitter,

tonight they are red,
mustard yellow stars
upon them.

she is squatting
washing the left half
of the double doors
as i stumble
through the right.

she has high
sharp
bosnian cheek bones,

vacuous black eyes
that never look at me
as i check out.

instead of dropping the change
into my hand
she plunks it on the counter and
derisively slides it towards me.

sometimes
i want to say:

look bitch

i'm no GED
house framing
goon,

i make good middle class coin
rehabilitating criminals,

i know words like mellifluous
and i'm familiar with the inner workings
of the electron transport chain,

so what
if i'm red cheeked
buying a forty
after two bottles of cheap wine.

but the vacant chomps
of her gum
tell me
the art of conversation
is lost.

keep the change cinderella