Dream In Which I Get Wendy’s With Marisha Ray

We’re in the drive-thru with the windows open on a hot summer day,
And she’s found a pair of scissors to cut the sleeves off my shirt.
When we get to the speaker, we can’t hear the cashier for the radio;
Instead of turning it down, we shout, and we make her shout,
Deep, from the diaphragm, because we all need this,
An excuse to shout and laugh after a lifetime of whispering.
Marisha asks me what I want, and have I tried,
The Spicy Takis Chicken Sandwich? I have never even had a Taki.
She orders four of them for the two of us and a small fry and a Frostie.
We eat them in the parking lot, the car still rumbling beneath us,
Impatient and nearly empty. We don’t even use the A/C,
Just the radio, a song neither of us know the lyrics too.
She hands me the sandwiches and tells me,
The first one is for the surprise; the second one is to enjoy.
When she takes her first bite, I ask her if she’s had them before,
And she laughs with her mouth full, as if that’s a silly question.
It’s just chili powder, cayenne pepper, and paprika on a corn chip,
A corn chip lovingly crushed by a minimum wage cook’s hands
Between a mass-produced bun and a rectangular burger,
But it tastes like Mexico in an old crime movie, 
A sienna filter on a hot summer day over the interstate on-ramp
In a small town whose name we will never remember.
When she takes the last bite, I ask her how she knew she loved him,
And she laughs with her mouth full. That’s a silly question too.