Matthew Guenette is the author of two books. His most recent poetry collection is American Busboy (University of Akron Press, 2011), a book inspired by his years busing tables at a vast warehouse of a seafood restaurant where the food was mostly fried and always served on disposable dinnerware. His first book, Sudden Anthem (Dream Horse Press, 2008), won the 2007 American Poetry Journal Book Prize. He has been awarded residencies for the Hessen-Wisconsin Literary Fellowship and the Vermont Studio Center. His poems appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Barn Owl Review, DIAGRAM, Indiana Review, and numerous others. He lives and works Madison, Wisconsin.
—PROLOGUE—
for Josh Bell
When we failed to steal lobsters
from a rival's tank
they made us eat
fistfuls of tartar sauce.
Busing tables
is a form of worship—
The managers would be screaming—
BUSING TABLES
IS A FORM OF WORSHIP!
until we became abstract compositions,
shocked into prepping
the Golden-Brown Traps
Golden-Brown Traps prepared.
On Labor Day
they pierced our nipples
for The Monster Triple Shifts,
made us understand
our loved ones
would never understand
but the training held
certain rewards—
for instance, the prospect of raining
on rude tourists
a weather of coleslaw & fried shrimp.
That our cod-
pieces grew more explosive
each day helped us believe
in the mission.
Our sweat-soaked shirts raised,
the waist bands
of our polyester pants pulled down,
we searched for busboy
birthmarks born
of fierce chafing.
With their Teflon
hands the managers might suddenly
slap us—
Those moments where death
felt moments away—
Checking to see
if we'd stick to the training,
not call out the names
of the ones we loved
(our loved ones
who would never understand)
testing to see
if we'd keep busing
like each tables was a voice
buried alive. Many questions were served
in the busboy training.
Like: Could these new faces
be removed? Could they ever be
cleaned & serviced?
& when it finally seemed
nothing could touch us—
We were wrong,
everything could touch us.
The managers
let us go.
—NATIONAL FLAG WEEK—
When the hostess comes
out to apologize
for the over-fried clams
she's doing her job—
Apologizing for disappointing fried clams.
Apologizing for fried clams that have underachieved.
Apologizing for fried clams
that have lost their sense of purpose.
It was determined
the cheese slices stuck to the ceiling
must have had their reasons.
Generally
as they prepped your food
the cooks would listen unironically
to 80s speed metal.
The locker room
where socks
had gone to die.
The lobster tank where now & then
a lobster tried to escape,
but the others
would drag him back—
This isn't about the flawed
democracy of lobster tanks,
the sweaty dictatorship
of managers
at the bar with toothpicks
in their mouths
saying things like You missed a spot.
Or the unacceptable conditions
the green dumpsters worked under
wheezing blue fluid
to the bay
where the tourist attraction
were tourists
who were attractions
thanks to their shitty parallel
parking skills.
The new rich estates
along the shore
looked like cheap estates
trying to look
like old rich estates.
On the bulletin board
in English & Spanish were directions
for what to do
if someone was choking.
If you were choking in another
language too bad for you.
Still—
There were times busing tables
when I felt strangely free.
Yet no one asks
how I came to be a busboy.
It was the same way
anyone becomes a busboy.
Someone on the inside
vouched for my character.
—ESCAPE ARTIST—
Harry Houdini could escape any
thing. He escaped
the 17th ward. He escaped his name.
Nobody wanted to see
an Erik Weisz
escape from a pair of black & white
checkered polyester pants so he slipped
into Houdini after bootlegging his way
from Hungary, which he called
Appleton, Wisconsin.
That's how good he was—
He was Hungarian named Erik Weisz
who tricked everyone into thinking he
was a Houdini from Appleton, Wisconsin.
His father was a chowder cook. His mother a colossal
a deep sigh of a wave. Hello?
In school he could make gym disappear.
He was voted Most Likely
To Be First in the Line. Then he was voted Most Likely
To Die. At airports he escaped being stripped-searched
with swagger. In Russia he escaped from Siberia.
In Escape from New York he escaped
from New York with a case
of hundred dollar bills. He could escape
all kinds of shit just by holding his breathe. He could even
escape his image in a mirror—as good
as escaping time. Compared to that, being
suspended upside-down in a tank filled
with managers & electric eels
was nothing. He was like
a curtain. He was like a pair of dark shades.
A mouth of gold teeth.
He would regurgitate small keys at parties
to impress chicks. When he had to work in a restaurant
he bused tables with his thoughts. When he kissed
the waitresses he never moved his lips.