~ BRUNCH ~
Sunrise Over a Scraggle of Food-Strewn Debris
cocktail napkins stained maraschino
& stuffed into glass throats. I open umbrellas & wipe down
Bistro Tables Still Sticky With Liquor & Beer & Ketchup Drips
& by the parking lot there are always
jonesing people trawling, popping open
Tall Dark Cigarette Towers & Rummaging the Ashes
for good butts to pocket,
salvaging the last of someone’s
Unfinished Smoke Break
from the night before — maybe mine. Whoever’s,
they go from one mouth into
The Pit, Into a Pocket & Into the Mouth
of another, life renewed
in the scraps of scraps,
A Low Hum Singing Open
my same hunger, half-pack weighing
reassuringly in my apron as I sweep up
Butts That Didn’t Make It To The Tower
& always some of them catch
between cracks in the concrete, falling in, leaving me on
Hands & Knees, Pulling Spent Vices
from their depths, I disappear
to make space for another
Sunday In The Sun, Swept Concrete
& empty towers
ready for more.
Click here to read Ginger Ayla on the origin of the poem.
Image by Valentin on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
Ginger Ayla:
I’ve long been obsessed with “vices.” We often associate vices with pleasure (and shame), but turning to a vice is usually an attempt to self-regulate, manage stress, or get through the day. During the years I worked in the service industry, I thought a lot about vices and the constant, rapid cycles of consumption/renewal around me: Plates filled and emptied, drinks poured and downed, cigarettes lit and smoked. I enjoyed shaping some of those memories into a poem, and shaping the poem into a brunch menu: something that usually promises satiety and pleasure, but in this case, offers only the hunger and sweat and scraps that are usually obscured in the periphery — if visible at all.
Ginger Ayla (she/her) is a writer and poet who lives on the Colorado-New Mexico border with her partner and their beloved troublemakers, Winnie, Olive, and Bug. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Glass Poetry, PRISM International, Phoebe, Grist, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for the Best New Poets Anthology. Currently a freelance writer and editor, she’s fueled by coffee, nature, and reality TV. You can find other writings on her Substack, Effing the Ineffable.
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