Bridget Fahey O’Brien
Afternoon Delight
Inspiration Piece
Things They Didn’t See
By Annmarie Lockhart
Response
She didn’t see:
- the time it took to flatten and stack the boxes
that carried onions, broccoli, bean sprouts before
they were sautéed with the duck featured
so prominently on the sign - the hands of the woman who strung the lights
whose job it was to suggest festivity in the shape
of a strip-needled tree and the glare of foil
four long years and an earthquake ago - the city man who gave the place an “A,” meaning
the grease and dust were of the safest variety, no vermin
DNA accrued in the kitchen, the food was kept hot enough
to dissuade bacterial proliferation
He didn’t see:
- the raised paw and pearl white face of the good luck cat
in the window, warding off times dark and lean, hailing
sunlight and neon, starlight and stardom, winking
at the inside joke of fortune - the way her frozen yogurt slid from blueberry bright
to purple stain in the time it took to walk and talk
from Hell’s Kitchen to her apartment filled with
songbirds just south of the Lincoln Tunnel - the residual hope shining behind her glasses, glints
of the dream she had the night before while he watched the Yankees
and she danced with a stranger, waking to tell him she wondered
why she never dreamed anymore
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