Vox Populi
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Fred Shaw: The Pass
— the area in front of the cooking line where orders are placed for servers to pick up.
In the pass, a regatta of hands spawn
the hum of this stretch, voicing
a kitchen stainless, where the singed
and scarred carry lyrics of sweat and onions
beneath their stained white aprons,
a last refuge for tatted men to preach
into boiling grease while the cross-eyed
dishwasher lets his radio croon
with The Commodore’s tall tales
about easy Sunday mornings.
In the pass, someone’s working off
last night by chugging Kool-Aid,
the color of blood running rare
on a platter of prime rib resting beneath
the heat-lamp’s searing orange coil.
In the pass, a testy chef chews his lip
while zesting an orchard of green apple
over a peppery dish of risotto,
squinting his way to soigne by slicing
a plump of roast duck into a shingle,
letting it rest atop a blueberry demi
brushed into a comet’s tail, finished
with a nasturtium,
tweezered until it floats,
a lily-pad on a pond of China.
In the pass, impatience sounds
like a dusty Epson printer clicking out chits
until they reach the cracked tiled floor,
fixing tempo for the clatter and bang
of countertops, and a cook who butters
his bread by making a mark
of the new server until she can’t forget
how to cradle atop her palm and wrist
another scorching plate, baited
to singe a yielding skin until it blisters.
~~~~
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. First Published in Superpresent Magazine
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How I admire the rich music & delicious diction in this poem! Such a delight from start to finish and fun to read out loud.
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Isn’t it? Thanks for saying so, Meg.
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A mighty poem and one where the two lives are clearly marked: those who, oblivious and in this poem invisible, can permit themselves the exquisite plates of food versus those who prepare it with ‘sweat and onions’ and the cruel demands of ‘the pass’. Two worlds. Wonderfully crafted, memorable.
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Delicious! But — ouch — those hot plates…
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When I was unemployed fresh out of college, I worked as a busboy at Tony Roma’s. I lasted one day, quitting before I could be fired. Restaurant workers are part of the almost invisible network of people who make our lucky lives possible. I love Fred Shaw’s poems because he shows us the workers behind my privilege.
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Between farm and table, a delectable meal traverses many a human drama. The juxtaposition of sophisticated gourmet oohs and ahs, and the hangover repair service mentioned here, (among other edgy way-stations), involves many human marks who diners may not wish to meet– before their risotto arrives, Bon Appetit, and they eat.
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Well-said, Jim.
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What an overflowing cornucopia of many-textured sounds! Rhythms, vowels, consonants, onomatopoeia—a steady stream of delectable words to lick, inhale, savor on the tongue, drink deep!
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Yes, I love how the modest subject becomes a source of rich images and sounds.
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