On this street corner
where shoes drum pavement like Mongol hordes
and revolving doors spin like carwash buffers,
he awakens with a quiet start.

Holding aloft a tray of beef medallions
and asparagus spears buttered in gold
and golden potato scallops shaved paper-thin,
aromas swirling in the air like genies
fleeing their bottles,
his tuxedo jacket, black as before creation,
his eyebrows, patient and unperturbed.

His calm is a lie
and his heart pounds beneath his immaculate white shirt
and a strand of sweat trickles down his starched sleeve.

Here with his tray, not knowing his name, or his social security number, or the way he likes his tea.

But he knows what he is.
For in all this nightmare of erasure, amid the blare of taxi horns and the whistles of street cops,
one concern remains, gleaming
bright as a steak knife:

Whose order is this? And where's their table?
 

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