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Dance of Two Line Cooks
by Mamie Morgan

                                           for Celso

                                                             “There are days when I feel I am becoming good
                                                              at what I do. And then I wonder, what does it mean
                                                              to be good at this?”         
                                                                                                         -Francisco Cantu, U.S. Border Patrol, 2008-2012

I.
 
Mi maestra, I am
too stupid for a wife, he says.
 
Then, as if to explain,
rolls a single pant leg
 
to unearth a traveling song
of scars. One night, all the men
 
on my side of Guatemala
told me not to run, and I ran.
 
 
II.
 
There are days when I feel
better at scrubbing sunchokes
 
than teaching the sacrifice
of Iphigenia to seventh grade
 
prep school kids just up the road,
how brave it was she knew her place.
 
Days I clock in at the restaurant
so tired Celso assumes I’ve been up
 
all night fucking. Squeaky-squeaky,
he says, mock-humping the CO2 tank
 
in dry storage like we both don’t sleep
on mattresses that lie flat against a floor.
 
He goes back to shaving
four hundred garlic cloves against
 
the blade of a mandolin having tied
the superhero mask of restaurant-grade
 
plastic wrap around his head
to protect the eyes. I go back to scrawling
 
today’s date in Sharpie across
the wide chests of quart containers.
 
We laugh a laugh that sets
just enough rules on fire to fulfill
 
the sweet tooth of resentment, which
can make a mockery of almost anything.
 
 
III.
 
The first year I asked
how he came to this country
 
Celso said, I travel
by bus you stupid slut.
 
Vos ramera torpe.
The fourth year I asked
 
he said, We walked.
We passed skeletons lying
 
facedown still wearing
their backpacks. All the things inside
 
were gone: apples and water,
all of their shy-mouthed sisters.

​Mamie Morgan teaches poetry at The South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, Four Way Review, Carolina Quarterly, Inkwell, Cimarron Review, The Greensboro Review, and elsewhere. 
Read more..
​Fall 2016, Issue 19
ISSN 2157-8079
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