All-You-Can-Eat Night at the Golden Corral

painting by fernando botero

all-you-can-eat night at the golden corral

They waddle in from the
blaring late afternoon,
changing at the door
from jowled poundage
into something wholly other,
the scent of fried chicken
and hot biscuits steaming
on the buffet lifting
them on soft wings
of buttery-bright light.

They are glimmers and
spectra of delight
as they dance round
the massed chafers,
weaving and swooning,
clicking their expectant
teeth, eyes wide
with salivate joy.

Outside it darkens
and thunders; rain
curtains the windows,
obscuring the view
from those who judge
them unworthy
from the thin life
they left years ago.

“Air on a G String,”
“Canon in D,”
“The Bells of St.
Genevieve”:
On and on the music
of their mouths as
the buffet is battened
down, gulleted and burped
with congregational
sigh that lasts
through the evening.

By closing time the world
outside is dead, working
the forges of Purpose’s dream.
No one sees these faithful
wurst waddle to their cars,
so full as to nearly
burst from their skins.

Ah, but their eyes
still glow with the
gold light of buffet,
so otherworldly, burning
on the wattage of all
those calories, silos
of receipt that will
cause the ends of
the world to list
when they bed down,

praying for stamina
and courage to face
the world’s rack of days
til the next Tuesday night’s
all-you-can-eat buffet
opens its doors once again.

Their lumbering breaths
lower and slow till
at last they’re set free,
floating off in their
pale belly-boats
on a main of butter
and gravy and sauce

while jolly cherubim
dance on through the night
on jello-globs of gloopy fat,
sclerosing the arteries
with a million candles
of hard-candied light.

Brendan MacOdrum

Posted over on his site Oran's Well
Listed as #11 over at dVerse Poets-Botero Prompt