The woman who won't shut up, the kid whose eyes cross,
the couple old as Moses with their slip-on shoes and clear bag
of dollars. We all go straight for the vending machines, Swiss
steaks enrobed in plastic for her, Swiss & turkey sub for him,
must be something about the Alps.

What if the guard told a joke that was funny? There was a jumble
of high chairs in that corner when I got here, now just one
facing the wall, the wall an under-the-sea mural, all of us fish
in air. The choking poster rolls its eyes above the Bible table.
Now the men come through, one of them you, and check in
at the guard's double chin, like everyone, like always,
and like always for a moment I can't look up.