On Mondays by Alexandra Umlas

On Mondays

We’ve been making our way to the small
Italian diner in the strip mall on Warner,

where two can sit without waiting,
where you can add a three dollar

side salad piled with mozzarella
and pickled vegetables.

This is what heaven is like, I think,
a glass of house chianti, enough bread,

balsamic, oil to last the night, the familiar
traffic half-humming, half-grunting by—

and God is the spaghetti and meatballs,
that is always enough for us,

whose blood and body we devour,
who both nourishes and fills us.

And praise be to the line-cook
who has cooked our God that night,

who has made the thing we cannot
articulate, and given it to us on a plate,

who portions out God after God
so that the little restaurant is filled

with them, who has made each taste
rich and salty as the beach-night air—

*

Alexandra Umlas is from Long Beach, CA and currently lives in Huntington Beach, CA. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection At the Table of the Unknown (Moon Tide Press).