by Zeke Shomler
I start my shift at Taco Bell and all I want to do is eat. I become a cabbage knifed to shreds. A plant eating plant. Beans and rice = not a spiritual salve but it masquerades. Christina says she loves the brown tiles / cracks in the walls / broken warming cabinet on the left. Henry’s putting on his big-man voice for the customers today. I feed so many mouths. I become so many mouths. I touch my finger to the grill and melt into the floor. The air smells like diesel fuel wafting in through the window with the light. I pray to every god inside the walk-in. Snap my gloves like the bones of mammals. Take ten minutes to sit in the lobby and it fails to restore me. I used to live in a state with mandatory breaks but now I have to beg. I get the urge to plunge my hand into the deep fryer. Replace the Dr. Pepper syrup instead. Punch the box to tear it open, connect the sticky plastic tube. A few months ago Nick burned his hand in the rethermalizer. David gave a thousand dollars from the safe to a scammer, paid it back with his own cash. I drink half a gallon of Pepsi Zero. I crawl into a paper bag. I remember that beef is yet another word for violence. This world is violent. It’s visible through a safety flap in the back door.
ZEKE SHOMLER is an MA/MFA candidate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His work has appeared in Cordite, Sierra Nevada Review, Folio, and elsewhere.
Union Spring Literary Review 