no one else wanted the job
of eulogizing over-caffeinated high school student
struggling to manifest her parents’ failed dreams
of celebrating the widower and divorcee on their first date—
the tan lines ill-faded from ring fingers almost touching
of explaining the long, tragic story of why leaving
his pregnant wife is the safest option for them both.
no one else saw
the blue-haired gaggle, smiling daggers at their past—
the less wrinkled reflection struggling twins into a stroller
while her toddler sloshes an uncovered cup of hot chocolate
across her ankles
her studying for a biology exam—him, studying
how she chooses each highlighter before use,
how her brow condenses into tiny tidepools
as she concentrates, how cute the little fist-pump
when her flash card approves of her thinking
the novelist watching me watch her watch them.
no one else was willing to record
how the baristas—clad in feigned comradery and smiles
in three sizes—side-eye colleagues and customers alike,
knowing what steam and a red cloth can’t sanitize
how eyes silently cut to the finance dude-bro talking
too loudly on a zoom call without earbuds, without
concern for the space, oblivious to others
how her body flinches away from the problem set
when her tutor’s hands creep too close to hers
once again.
Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is an educator, essayist, occasional fiction writer, and author of seven poetry collections, most recently Promises to Keep (Wayfarer Books, 2026). Editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal, a poetry editor at American Poetry Journal, and creative nonfiction editor at Porcupine Literary, MEH’s publications include Barren Magazine, Had, Massachusetts Review, Mom Egg Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Ploughshares, Stone Circle Review, Terrain, and The Worcester Review. MEH earned an MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. He writes about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground at www.MEHPoeting.com.