Just her and me: she sits with her legs / twined ankle to knee, her hand / hiding the bruises / on her cheek. She dangles car keys as if thinking / about escape to some otherwhere without these islands / of formica tabletops afloat in the neon Sargasso Sea / of two a.m. where I eat as quietly as I can, / not wanting to disturb her privacy / after she set down gently my cherry pie / and retreated back to the farthest table. / The jut of her jaw multiplied in every pane / sets night’s teeth on edge / in the doppler whine / of truck tires fading far away.