Inner Workings of the Mom n Pop Pizza Shop
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A work in progress poem reflecting the personalities of the coworkers that I am happy to have worked with at a local shop I have enjoyed working at during my time in graduate school.
Taped to the door’s plexiglass pane, a portrait
Of a Savior with ardent heart burning
Sunlight invades with the turning of hinges
Untethering the hospitality of Tony, the lone waiter
His Brazilian arms are swinging doors, open to embrace
He wore fishnet leggings to the Halloween Jamboree
Leather corset paired with his jet black hair,
Moving with grace at the age of seventy
To the right of the register towering above
The marble counter, the burnout teen dreams
Of welding underwater. A master of sparks
Under the pressure of the indomitable sea
Within his perspective the walls contort,
Xanax whispers in voices of an angel’s Hark
“They won’t know if the register’s short”
Behind the oven is the maestro of cheese and painted tomato
Luis whistles and sings ballads in the tongues of banda
Smiling at nothing with teeth all jagged and yellow
Welcoming all who wander with an “Ah mi amigo, ¿como estas?”
A jolly grin and laughing lungs lift a belly made of pizza dough
The oiled gears of a restaurant’s engine, fueled by cervezas
Joe rides into the shop he owns on his jet black Harley
To work with the line cooks in his leather steel toed boots
He was once Philly cop, and he may still be stuck in center city
He never lets his gun leave the secure embrace of his belt loop
Yet under such a Italian-American macho man brovato
Lies the soul of a tender soul that loves to cook for his community
Across the street, sunflowers raise their winter withered heads
The sizzling steak sandwiches sing in a chorus of cholesterol
The leather booths welcome anyone escaping the World’s dread
So come to Carmines, a source of solace for any and all
Copyright © B. Andrew Kelly | Year Posted 2024
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