Empty bucket in the corner,

Can I borrow a few dollars for gas? 

Everyone here has nowhere to go,

So we browse the steel shelves,

Fawns without our mothers

Before we have lost our spots. 

A cotton apron hugs the curve of her hips. 

Potato wedges. Mac and cheese.

Turnip greens. Gizzards. Liver. 

She clocks in two hours before noon

To heat the pans of golden oil. She lines

The battered birds in their cages by hand.

Our empty stomachs growling when we

Walk past the corrugated metal vent

Pumping the smell of the kitchen into the air. 

White latex gloves kiss black skin—

Honey. Corn starch. Peanut oil. Gasoline. 

Order a box of fried chicken gizzards. 

Only one drumstick per customer. 

Nobody deserves that much love,

Not even from Venus in the kitchen.

Once upon a time, she dropped a single

Oyster shell in the deep fryer;

It has slept at the bottom ever since.

Some of us, we have lost our mothers

Before our antlers have come in,

But when we are hungry, she will feed us:

Cayenne. Paprika. The pepper, white and black. 

Flour. Buttermilk. The meat, light and dark. 

Our tongues do not see color, only motion.

You will know her by her hands: 

Fowl torn apart by calloused black fingers.

She will know you by her touch.

The manager told her five to a box, 

But a sixth smiles up at you.

Can I get you anything else, sugar?