The husky boy in the corner does his own dancing.
Against the wall, he caresses the cuff of his tight,
crisp suit. We all have mothers to smooth out our edges.
Some stick a needle in us, some need us to be naked
too often. His mother is soft and kind. She asks nothing
of his body, but to be full inside the fabric. He will shove
the food down to his center, and it will sit there like a pearl.
It is all he has—this tenderness, in eating. The fork
to the different colors and piles, his wrist knowing
in the bending. He will stare at the girl in the yellow dress
with the empire waist. He would take his eating to her center,
the deepest part, to her mouth, all circles, all hunger.