Craving

Did you know they deep fry butter, I ask him, while we sit,
       hunched and glaze-chinned,
half-watching the shuttle launch on the truck stop TV and eating cheese tots wrapped in bacon.
Chances are we’ll end up here again,
     then maybe back to my place for sex,
two pigs in a blanket, he jokes.
Whoever sat here last had flipped the mayonnaise packets
          belly-up.
 Four hours until my shift and my khakis are dirty.
The guy in the back booth pokes at the TV with a casted hand.
   His neck is wrapped
in a blue bandage that matches his t-shirt, as if he’d planned it. I reach for the ashtray,
       wondering how I’d manage without fingers. Butter.
Now who’d eat that?
An oven timer goes off and I try to remember when trucks started beeping when they back up.
 Across the screen parade several barefoot women, crying
         and carrying bread.
I want to try that fried butter, he says.
The sound is turned down and I wonder why they’re crying.
      Come on, we’re out of cigarettes, he says.
Let’s grab a six-pack, find a dirt road, and make out. We should go fry something,
            just because we can.