The smile is the hardest part.
Somewhere between 9 and 10 the soft
meat of your jaw starts to throb,
followed by a twitching cheek around 11
and finally a frozen scowl by 1.

It’s an art –
learning not to let your brows clench
together,
not to slip the chowder bowl down the
lady’s glittering neckline,
not to sprinkle cardamom in that
seigneur’s crested locks.

But they all smile
and you do too.
You’ll wash their snotty napkins and
scour their drooly plates
and they’ll giggle and blow bubbles at you
as if to say

thank you
for being
and for bearing.