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
she says
the economy no longer requires a 15% tip
after all most of us just can't afford that kind of spending
As if the people who are dining out on this fabulous
Friday evening are being more viciously affected by the recession than those working to fill those bellies
maybe she's forgotten what it's like
maybe she'll never meet the women I work with
Maybe I'll never get to tell her I came home with 40 bucks last night
toothless and bloodshot
I gave away every ounce of beauty I had left
Seeds of pain rest in the curve of my back
My bedsheets smell like oiled meat
My fingers tainted like a warm sofa
This is the stench that will dirty my nice clothes
This is my ladyhood sizzling on the fryer
This is an arcade hall where we've paid for every win

DJ's got four kids
she's twenty years deep and has the
prettiest hair you've ever seen
Tammy Sue owns her own framing business and still fights to understand her daughter
Christina calls in for a soccer tournament
Angela asked for a tool box for Christmas
Sara's going to law school and never wants children
Veronica knows both sides of domestic violence
Chris walked to work with a black eye and a palm-shaped bruise wrapped around her throat
I never thought I'd be a diner lady
but this is the story of every
single mother
this is the face of an endless page novel
this is the 30 pound tray resting on her shoulder
this
is work