Paige Ellen Passantino

Shift #764 at The Melting Pot

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2026: VOL. 41.

Here is the secret: the cheese comes in plastic bags.
I will not call myself a chef just because I mix it up
and turn a table on, all for a stranger’s birthday.
And I will not say the thing I am when you give
me cash the morning after, go pick up your daughter.
This job seems better than Shift #765, but I will never
call it by name: you will never call me by mine.

Paige Ellen Passantino (she/hers) is an MFA candidate in poetry at Johns Hopkins University, where she teaches creative writing. She earned her BA in literature from Smith College as an Ada Comstock Scholar. Her work appears on Poets.org and in The Florida Review, SHŌ Journal, and Pinhole, among others. She is a nominee for 2025 Best of the Net, an honoree for the 2023 Adroit Prize, and her work has been supported by Tin House.