[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]
Well, thanks, Ander.
That was perfect.
I wouldn't want my intro any other way.
Thank you.
Thank you all for being here.
This means a lot to me.
I've thought too much about the poems
I'm going to be reading tonight, ever since I got the email.
So thank you to Kate Bernheimer and Bojan Louis
for organizing this.
Thank you, of course, to Tyler, Sarah, Paola, Julie, everyone
who works at the Poetry Center, for just being amazing,
amazing people.
So, yeah, awesome, cool.
So the poems are behind me as well,
so you get a visual element.
This poem is dedicated to the creative writing class
at York University in York, Nebraska.
And there's actually four authors.
It's myself, James Butler-Gruett,
who is also a graduate of the MFA program in fiction here,
and then his two creative writing students.
There's only two people in this creative writing class,
Eliza Rodha and Jenna Smith.
But we all collaborated and wrote this poem together.
And the title is "What's Happening in the Arby's Managers
Group Chat in York, Nebraska?"
The Cheese Machine is broken.
Lisa keeps texting cowboy emojis.
Our location is wrapped from 9-3.
My backline can be finished by close
with just the slicer left and if you wanted food
you could get food, sometimes food was food
you waited a long time and got mad
but the sauce of Arby's is decent food.
Jeremy hasn't learned how to work the register yet
but he loves mopping!
My Arby's smells like a kitchen full of waffles.
I start off by checking time punches.
Then start on turnovers and bacon.
Arby's is like one of those nieces that gives you a shy fist
bump.
This Arby's is trying to reuse coupons
that expired 40 years ago.
The morning shift at Arby's is like two mirrors spinning down
a drain.
Stay in the top 3 out of all of our stores
through peck times, oh sorry peak!
and in between peak
times, enter invoices, look at pictures of my niece
from her Peppa Pig birthday party last weekend,
check emails from corporate and get my store ready for success.
Arby's is only here for the scholarship money.
Arby's gives my ex back his hoodie.
Is this the Mexican market with the good, spicy mango candy?
No, Sir, this is an Arby's.
And later, at the good Mexican market with the spicy mango,
This Arby's wants to practice her Spanish,
This Arby's took two semesters of non-native Spanish,
but she's afraid of coming off as a try-hard Arby's.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
Well, thanks.
Thanks you.
Thanks.
[CHUCKLES]