Hungry

Turkey tetrazzini tastes like a ball of paste,

and these canned peaches

are not like the ones Mama preserved in California.

Whenever she’d open a new jar

in the cold, rainy winter,

it became summer again in my bowl.

Everyone else is talking to everyone else

but not to me. So I eat this food

because I’m starving

and there isn’t anything else to do

in this cafeteria

that smells like American cheese and Comet.

Nothing to do but look at my tray and eat

by myself.

Why is that boy over there—

the one in a fifth chair at a table of four—

staring at me?

Mama told me not to be pushy

but wait to be invited.

I smile at the boy. He smiles back

but doesn’t invite me to a sixth chair.