Bob’s Big Boy
comes in
where the miracle happens
again today,
sidles up to the conversation
which never changes like the menu
except for the specials
and hears his name handled confidently
in quadruplicate
and glances over impressed and humble
faces of not-so-regulars
like boring headlines
and fumbles in his shirt for a smoke
and takes a light and a deep drag
before tossing out “Thanks” like a quarter tip
then sees her,
coming toward him,
and sets his watch again as she comes forward
forward bringing his water
right up across the counter
so that he must notice it slide
slightly on its wet cushion and the
square circle ice goes slosh against the
glass with the love handle around its
sweaty waist
and reaches knowingly to accept it
then watches her hands that
dip and feel in the
folds of her orange apron,
down and hidden in
and out again with a pad and pen
and waits for her to ask and says the usual
and she says what’s that and he straightens
and repeats it looking at the pad and wiggling pen
and rolls the glass between his fingers
as she pours his coffee and drops a couple of
Half and Halfs
then walks away with a walk that
makes him hurt.
He reaches for his cigarette and sucks his coffee
in the sound that is his thought
and thinks a while of silverware and glasses
and wonders for a moment in the ache of bacon if
he might just–what was it?
when her hands come bearing plates of food for him
a refill and presto one two no three!
Half and Halfs from her apron
and he smiles back at his eggs
and lovingly begins to eat his number 5 with hash browns
and oh the eating fills him up and makes him hungry
in this friendly restaurant where he brings
his need.
And the salt flows free
and the ketchup rolls slow
until at last again she comes,
his waitress,
wiping spills, wiping round under ashtrays
rainbows round,
wrists dipping softly in her apron
for a pad or pen and things and things
and maybe if he asks who knows she’ll
pull a rabbit out or even–dipping
and wiping and scooping up
tips all at once, all at once, and
he sips his cigarette and smokes
his coffee as she tames him with her
vanishing hands he knows would smell like
dawn if he could only
cig his siparette and cough his smokee
and laugh with the ring of the register and the
talk of plates and glasses being
swung around so easy in this
busy neighborhood and where the
streets all smell of bacon and the
cabbies call him Mayor and the
weather’s on the menu and the
sunny side is orange and the
whole confounding world is round and round and round
and round.
mws 