Ukraine, I crane

Ukrainian Waitress at the Pigeon Forge Chop House

Please don’t judge us solely

on our dinner selections

loaded Idaho baked potatoes

versus

heart smart rice pilaf

crocked French onion soup

over

full orders of spicy Buffalo chicken wings

though on second thought

our nagging lamentations

over second guessed choices
photo spreads 

of this or that or the other thing 
blinding glare from slicky-slack

laminated menus-for-dummies

may be a revelation

that beats Gallup, Harris, even Nate Silver. 

Latvian or Polish, maybe Czech

but what kind of arcane

global department of weeding shunts

youth from former Soviet satellite states

to places like:
Branson, Missouri or Pigeon Forge, Tennessee or

the Wind Jammer Restaurant in Copper Harbor, Michigan

where a young woman fresh

from mainland China once took 
our order, unrelenting 
smiles on all faces

smiles for the menu

smiles for each other

smiles for the large woman inching

through the restroom door marked “Gulls”

smiles for the low ceilinged
gunmetal gray clouds

soldiering in from Superior

smiles for four old Finns gumming

pillowy cinnamon buns

smiles for the pair of lenses

missing from the stylish frames

on the beaming face

of our Mandarin speaking waitress

who, as it happened, was

weeks away from wrapping

up a summer stint in the Upper Peninsula

on her way to wintering

over in Chicago

a distinction without

much of a difference. 

“Ukrainian” you say

emphasis on the second

syllable, leveling me with a 2 x 4 
gaze, spade 
of European fatalism

furrowing your brow

“Lviv”, I wager
“seems nice”

followed by a breathless

drive-by of recent Ukrainian history:

a Russian father

perforated borders

a sister in Donetsk

you worry about day and night

here beneath the Aurora Borealis 
caloric motel gag 
of the Smoky Mountain foothills.

What is your opinion of Dolly Parton?

Have you toured the Titanic?

Do you ever get the itch

to stroll the Creation Museum?

questions I would like to ask 
but don’t. Instead 
I order some wine

the Chop House being

the only place around 
to get it by the glass

owing to Byzantine Baptist 
blue laws

that allow
should the mood take hold
one to buy a Mason jar

of pure Tennessee 
moonshine likker. 

“Santa Fe” I say

by way of suggestion

when your tenure here is up

but your heart

seems to be set on Denver. 

Oh well, at least it’s not

the U.P., I think as I take

my first sip
a toast and a smile

for a Slavic expat 
from a famished native.