Love is not
                                       everything;
                                                                              my girls need
cough drops,
                                       rainbow unicorn
                                                                              trapper keepers                      
to smear with
                                       blue erasable
                                                                              pens;
for this the
                                       fifty cents
                                                                              extra of the night
shift hours;
                                       for this, despite
                                                                              the rules,
I take home
                                       the still hot
                                                                              apple pies
destined
                                       by law
                                                                              for the huge
white sack;
                                       love is not
                                                                              edible;
love is not
                                       the thing
                                                                              Ken the night
manager
                                       thinks
                                                                              it is;
love does not
                                       hang against
                                                                              anyone's
thigh,
                                       bounce askew
                                                                              like this month's
ridge-flawed
                                       happy meal
                                                                              superball;
is not what
                                       I carried for
                                                                              eighteen
months in my
                                       sweat-soaked
                                                                              uniform pants,
their open waist
                                       held in place
                                                                              with a tightening
band;
                                       love is not why
                                                                              I am here;
if love
                                       were what
                                                                              made me
a mother, Ken
                                       who will
                                                                              show you what
he thinks he
                                       is not,
                                                                              would be mother
to music;
                                       Sarah, who steals
                                                                              from the drawers,
would be
                                       mother
                                                                              to her own
independence;
                                       love is
                                                                              nothing,
is the nothing
                                       unbought by
                                                                              thirty eight hours
of the smell
                                       of hot grease               
                                                                              on the heat lamps;
things are
                                       the problem,
                                                                              not love.

__

This poem is part of a longer sequence, in which other people working alongside Renée also take turns speaking. Approximately one out of every eight people in America has worked at a McDonalds at some point; my own shift, much briefer than Renée's, was in the summer after my first year of college.