Three lines for orders
we each wait in a separate line
in case one happens to stall
or another dismissed customers more rapidly.

I notice a small cockroach on the wall.
We find that to be
entertaining.

And then I notice a homeless man
steaming
standing for the last few minutes we’ve been here
and possibly much longer before that
in an untended fourth line
of his very own,
and just then
he yells out
a primal scream
a birth cry:
“Goddamit when the fuck’m I gon’ get some damn service here!”

Only then does a spare cashier magically appear
and rush silently to serve him

and I think,
that is the sound
of a man cracking.