BILLIONS
(After Walt Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry")
I
Polished tile below me. I look for his face
in the hurrying smiles behind the counter.
But I know. I know he will not be there, even this time, for he
would not look right in polyester, eating employee-
discounted food.
If he did, his eyes would frighten children whose impatient
mothers buy them Happy Meals.
The mothers not knowing why their children cry, never looking
away from the glowing menu until he says, "What shall my
service be? Do I know your expectations any better than
my own?"
Then they see the wild hair pulling his face in all directions,
the crooked nametag hanging loosely from the shirt (what can
describe that color? Drying blood? Inedible strawberry
jam? Burnt sienna? A kiss from the late-night donut
maker?).
I look for those eyes, that beard, the tag that may or may not
have his real name (I'd understand).
Does he know they hire seniors now?
Even poets.
II
Families, cheap dates, laughing high school almost-populars,
beatniks, metalheads, pastors, college basketball
players, lonely postal workers all rush
back and forth from door to line to table to restroom to door as
more come to replenish your numbers.
And I imagine a sterile room far away.
A small man types on his keyboard and then watches for the
perfect moment to declare: "One more billion served!"
III
Back where the floors and ceilings aren't as clean, the workers
rush, staring beyond the wall where the framed drive-thru
window hangs.
They smile. They always do. Except in those precious deviances
when the guy at the shake machine can't take it, screams,
"I'm not making another goddamn shake! I can't! Fuck
this!"
I saw that. Years ago as my mom waited in the station wagon.
I was the one. I was the one who wanted the strawberry shake.
The other workers smiled in horror, calmed him, made my shake.
IV
You come through.
You who pile your brown trays on top of the polite garbage cans,
who spill dollops of special sauce on the table, on your lap,
who thumb your change and mumble, "thanks" to the mantra, "Thank
you, come again!"
who drop your placemat, the connect-the-dots on it filled out in
pen, in with the cups still chiming with ice, the wrappers,
the untouched french fries and the wedges of bread.
You come, crowding in until the beacon outside is dark.
In this ritual, will you allow yourself to be touched?
I, too, walked in, could not decide what it was I hungered for
(french fries? burgers? sex? the new teriyaki chicken salad?
God? a strawberry shake?), ordered what best I could cope
with when my time came.
I, too, sat in silence or in conversation, or took my sack and
drove away.
V
And you will be there, after class, before work,
on your way to tennis lessons, on a dull afternoon,
always rushing to or from,
stopping to move on.
You will watch 1, 2, 3, 15, 20, 50, 100 billion more in that
unbelievable yellow tally
(Has all of China stopped by for a quick lunch, pedaling through
the drive-thru with a deafening symphony of bicycle
chimes?).
And still more will be served.
But what about me? If you glance into the corner booth,
will you recognize me dipping french fries into a shake?
Look closely, for I will be there!
Writing songs on the placemat, watching that time blur into the
hundreds of stops made years before and years ahead, all one
moment smelling of grease, feeling like sticky Coke-syrup
under my palm.
Like you, I am only pausing.
Like you, I am a sesame seed, a ketchup-bloodied pickle stuck to
the tray, a scrap of paper that must someday see the lid
swing open above me, I'll quickly read the words, "Thank
You" before I crouch in darkness.
But we are more than just this, more than the contents of a
cosmic dumpster.
We are remembered, immortalized.
Look! You drive past and see, I am there,
I am one among billions, but I am there, I am counted,
acknowledged in brightly-lit numbers
around the globe.
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