At The Owl Olivia Gatwood

I work with women who have crowbars for backbones
iron plates on the soles of their feet
they've got dinner for every night of
the year crumpled in their aprons
Wiped across their dish washed uniforms
This is where you get those calloused fingers
This is where you reek like grease
This is where you bring your children when it's too loud to sleep
between the separation and the divorce
the man you loved and the man you kissed
Between the period you longed for and the period you missed
this is your salary left on an empty table

I break my face into a half melon smile
Cock my neck like a question mark
offer him more of whatever he's drinking in a half-assed curtsy tone
his gaze hangs longer than I've asked for
Work for your money girl
Dance like a hooked fish
beg me like a stray dog
give me your teeth as tokens
I hand them over like coins in an arcade game
This is the art of the actress in a display window
This is the waitress under the spotlight of the hot tiled floor
Dew rising from its skin
perfume budding from its pores
This is the makeup for the $2.13 an hour before taxes
this is Oprah telling us to work