The Waitress

 

 

The waitress looks haggard

 

and beautiful.

 

Beautifully haggard as she tucks

 

 a wild wisp of hair back into its ponytail

 

while gliding through the kitchen door of Don Jose's Mexican Restaurant

 

holding a tray of enchiladas and sweet tea over her head with one hand

 

all the time

 

knowing she is haggard

 

--- and beautiful.

 

Beautifully haggard

 

and lovelier than most women half her age

 

yet past the prime of her sex's power and

 

sad

 

in the knowledge of how pride (or is it fear?) keeps her

 

from being kept

 

or domesticated or

 

bowed to another's will so

 

she waits --- tables

 

as she waits

 

for the soul-mate who will not come

 

the children (two boys and a girl) who will never suck at her sooner than later sagging breasts

 

and the satisfaction of being wanted for her heart not her

 

beauty turned haggard ---

 

beautifully haggard and

 

sad.


--- Darrell Arnold