Improv: "Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing"

Entry 5, riffing on Margaret Atwood’s “Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing”

John Wayne Picks Up Biscuits

A Jack’s bathroom and a bigrig airhorn
blows and this gravy biscuit and John Wayne
hovers in line, selling a vision of himself
like a cologne ad in a stuffy magazine, desired.
The undesirables like me gaze
at the ten gallons atop his squared head.
He says, to the waitress,
the world is full of women who tell me
I look like him, like their long lost daddy,
a southern Brando with an overbite,
he says this and the biscuit’s on the house.
A blush for the hunk in the tight Wranglers
and leather belt spelling Dewayne
all ornate and dead. He turns to leave,
bag greased and spillable,
full of Styrofoam and massive coronaries.
I call my order to the waitress,
her tit quivering, visor askew.
She’s just seen a picture of God.
I do not ask to see the manager
when my sausage egg ‘n’ cheese comes
slathered in gray gravy.