White or wheat?

White or wheat? the girl behind the counter of the sandwich shop asks me, and I get the feeling that she has had a really terrible day, so I point to myself, the picture of ignorance, and say "I'm Irish." I watch her eyebrows draw down in confusion and then, after several painful seconds, a slow smile spreads out across her face like the tide getting ever closer to lounging sunbathers, unaware and blissfully hot, and I think I finally understand why people write poems, because that smile those eyes that girl in the green apron will be with me forever. So I order my ham and cheese lunch and she throws a chocolate chip cookie in for free with a secret in her eyes that I only understand in the context of deli meat secret terrors florescent lighting the daily grind dirty tile floors minimum wage ponytails in hairnets traffic sanitary regulations white or wheat? and I leave the shop with more than a little of that girl on my back, a loathsome, beautiful passenger.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------