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.