Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.
Fred Shaw: Shivaree
The busboy’s belly growls
before every dinner shift,
his salted horizon stacked
with slippery plates, toted
two-handed and belt-high,
the load-worn grips
on those grey plastic tubs
split and ready to snap.
When the busser thinks
of tomorrow a stain worries
his only tux shirt, a splash
of red sauce lurking about
the forks pooling in a puddle
of watery merlot.
At the dish pit,
he pauses to shred
what’s edible resting atop
another load, vanishing
to the back hall with a veal shank
glistening in marrow, proud
of found calories, the umami
worth tucking into. He leaves
the slop and scraping
for the scullion, a tweaker picking
at a hockey-pucked steak,
some cold lasagna, a dead piece of sole,
nightly burdens returned
from a dining room swooning
with booze on the arm,
kept women, and Nat King Cole
stuck on repeat.
In time, a few bucks get pressed
into his bleach-soaked palm,
letting the busser forget about pans
clanking in a pot-sink
like a shivaree,
mocking what grows
quiet in his back pocket,
folded, and not yet wed with ache.
~~~~
Fred Shaw is a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh and was recently named to the Advisory Board for the International Poetry Forum. He also curates the online PQ Poem feature for Pittsburgh Quarterly where he is lead book reviewer. His first collection, Scraping Away was published by CavanKerry Press in 2020. A second book is in the works.
Copyright 2024 Fred Shaw (First published in 86 Logic)
Discover more from Vox Populi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This calls back my years of restaurant work. God bless the good bussers. God bless all restaurant workers.
LikeLike
Yes, God bless them; they are virtually invisible to most patrons. >
LikeLike
I admire how all of these enjambed lines keep drawing us down and through this poem–it’s gorgeous and thought-provoking, both.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree, Meg!
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
A wonderful, compelling lyrical narrative!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree, Syd!
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
The language, cadence, imagery, energy, tension in this poem! Bravo. A perfect poem to teach those often forgotten craft elements. I love this poem!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I do too, Laure-Anne. Fred has worked in the food service industry for a long time, and his poems re-create the rhythms and stories of that life.
>
LikeLiked by 2 people
I know what a Shivaree is. My mother made sure we had one on our wedding night in 1975. Staying in the family cabin in northern Michigan, we awakened to pots and pans banging outside, and had to invite everyone in for a snack. As my grandfather related, things could get out of hand in his day, with shotguns fired and the groom tossed from his bed. But ours ended peacefully and signaled the beginning of our 50 year marriage.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wonderful, Jennifer. Thanks for sharing this memory.
>
LikeLiked by 2 people