Continental Breakfast

La Quinta

Jackson, Mississippi

There’s a sadness in heart-shaped waffles,

in the cool flickering logs, in the tower 

of Styrofoam tended to by a brown person.

There’s petroleum in the apparel, haircuts and politics of the others.

There’s blunt force trauma in the space-age gravy, 

in the Fruit Loops from a wheel, in the envelope 

of eggs, in the TV news on mute. 

If it weren’t for all the banners scrolling across the screen

you’d think they were reciting poems—

serious, desperate, crucial 

poems.