The finger oil glistens in wide smears across convex glass
and the tired man in ***** Carhartts
asks the price for a rack of beef ribs.
The deli woman answers, his vision
quavers from the gristle and grease
as he dismisses the possibility of a feast,  
it just looked so good
he comments,  almost
pained or embarrassed.
She offers to cut it in half as
Dave the BBQ cook calls to me
across the fray and I wonder
if he wants my company,
for we talk long
about recent literary conquests
and our love of atypical diction.
The middle aged man
in the old ***** Carhartts
who walks
with the upright pain
of enduring parenthood
through poverty
refuses the meat with wry hurt
and wanders out of my life.
I drive one handed,
twelve ribs covered in tin foil
clutched dripping
as I peel back a metal edge
and gnaw flesh from bone.