At the Table of Illicit Assignation

We’re at a table, drinking bloody marys and totting up

three-dollars-and-change for the pregnant waitress

who keeps nausea and our conversation at a distance.

We’re at a table where our knives and forks and spoons

wrestle on plates of under-cooked, unfinished sentences,

where syllable-stained napkins wilt on our lips.

We’re at a table, tossing half-chewed wisecracks,

flicking quip-spittle at two tumblers of dead water,

a cutting-board of dry desire, and a fizzled candle.

We’re at a table, rolling woo-me dice and dollar bills,

throwing chinwag-gags and knuckle bones

across white cloth strewn with word-stale crumbs.

We’re betting where we’ll go next and what then

we’ll do with our bleeding tongues when we get there.