Debora Lidov
Summer
—in memoriam
I repeat my order—
“a Quarter Pounder
with cheese, a medium
Diet Coke”—and again she says
“What?” On my third
attempt to be heard,
I project from the belly—
through my slack surgical mask,
past my plastic visor,
past her Plexiglas pane,
stressing cheese for cadence
and diet for clarity.
Now, she stares. Next, she scoffs,
“This isn’t a McDonalds, you know.”
Now I’m floating and tingling.
Next I’m frozen
but burning. If I’m dead
I’m actively dying.
I gasp and ask for the Whopper.
She raises her brow and nods.
“I don’t even
like the Quarter Pounder,”
I add, which is true. I don’t—
but this sounds like a lie
the instant it leaves my lips.
Does she roll her eyes?
Of course she rolls them.
I’m thawing, I’m freezing.
I’m “sorry,” I say,
as if I am lying some more.
—Submitted on 06/24/2020
Debora Lidov is the author of the chapbook Trance (Finishing Line Press, 2015). Her poems have appeared in The Yale Review, The Paris Review, Salamander, upstreet, and Tarpaulin Sky, and other journals. She is a medical social worker and lives in Brooklyn.
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