Smile

There's this boy who works at Wendy's down the street,
and he's really something else.
I can't tell how old he is
because he's like seven feet tall
and incredibly skinny
and he has the face of an unusually naive 15-year-old.
He's the most polite person I've ever interacted with,
and it doesn't even make me feel flustered
that he calls me "ma'am".
It sounds respectful but at the same time
like we could be friends.
He always has a smile in his voice
--on his face, too, but his voice permeates farther into me--
that makes me think, wow, am I
supposed to be happy, too? Because I
think I might just be happy now,
like it's an instantaneously communicable
contagion.
He's the best part about lunch,
and I think maybe even if I didn't like the chili,
I would go to Wendy's anyway.
I wanna smile at him because
somebody should smile at him, because
everybody should smile at him, because
he's beautiful.