First Pedicure from a Vietnamese Woman

A poem I wrote last week. As you can tell by this, I find pedicures kinda awkward, ha! 

First Pedicure from a Vietnamese Woman

 A lonely glazed donut hardens

on the cracked sacrificial plate

painted with pink flowers.

The little Buddha leans back and smiles, looks away, as if to say,

“No, really, my diet starts today.”

Crumbling incense sticks are his barricade,

charred remains of whispered supplications,

his hoard of scorched intercession,

dues paid to the watchman of the shop.

I feel his burning stare from his dollhouse shrine,

as I too recline, in my sumptuous vomit-colored cushions.

And you, my beautifier, kneel at my feet.

My assistant of ablutions,

My provider of painted keratin,

what stories of gun point, panting breath, and stifling galleys

do you lock away behind your almond eyes?

What horrors did you touch so that you could be here,

to massage my ugly toes?

Sticky tabloids sit untouched by my side,

as interesting to me as dead fish,

frivolous nonsense that means nothing.

Who cares what Justin Bieber has to say,

when I know your heart starves for the embrace

of the child left behind in your homeland?

Buddha shifts in his seat hungrily.

The hour of prayer is getting closer,

as you wash the feet of the dream

you risked your life to taste.