LOBBY

I was in heat, wearing orange pants
and climbing the furniture in the lobby.

Jeanmarie smoked and empathized.
We were waiting and talking,

and when I told her I always thought I looked like a woman
-was easily mistaken for a woman-

she stopped, considered me, mouth open, and said,
"If ever a man looked like a man, you do."

And I remembered sitting in a deli-restaurant 
in San Francisco. I was thirteen and growing,

and when the waiter brought my second cheeseburger,
he said to my parents, "She's hungry, isn't she?"

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