And there she was rocking that baby like the tide itself, like the gulf out there churning slow and eternal, swaying with her hips the old old rhythm that mothers have known since the first mother stood in the first doorway of the first cave with the first fire going, patting that small back soft-soft-soft, lips pressed to the baby’s head like a prayer nobody taught her, just something that comes up out of the blood

and behind her all holy chaos, the cooks hollering across that tiny steaming kitchen, slinging orders like sea-captains lost in a squall, tickets flying, pans banging, the whole mad rhythm of Tuesday-night hunger

and here comes the waitress, kid can’t be nineteen, swinging that Coke too hard, too full, nearly baptizing the pink tile in brown fizz and nobody even looks up because it’s that kind of place, forgiving, loose, alive

and somewhere in the speakers that bajo sexto is strumming low and round, some sad sweet border-town chord progression older than the both of us, filling up the room like incense, like smoke, like the ghost of every guy who ever sat in a booth like this waiting on his number

and me, I’m just sitting there, ticket in hand, watching this madonna of the taqueria sway back and forth, back and forth, holding the whole universe in her arms while the world hollers and spills and sings around her, and I think: yeah, this is it, this is the place, these are my people, and I ain’t in no hurry, no hurry at all, let the number come when it comes.