Aaron Rudolph

has nothing to do with the quality of the food
but with the state of affairs between the two people
seated in the booth at the restaurant.
The food is savory and sweet in the ways
that it should be, but the conversation
is both too salty and wildly saccharine
in awkward places, and it feels like an ending,
one that happens much too quickly, with the waitress
bringing the ticket when the meal’s only half done.

In the case of these two people, they’re trying to savor
something that won’t be savored
and that makes it all the more desperate, difficult
to finish the meal with grace. Voices rise and fall
like hills, rice slumps off of forks and hands fumble
with glasses of water, ice cubes crashing
into each other in a barely audible act of conflict.