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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

DINER

Category: Issue 11

DINER

Sticky fingers on the menu,
syrup spots left over from the plump kid
who ate with his hands forgot the fork
next to prim parents who looked on in mild horror
at the child they’d wrought
wishing they were somewhere else
back in time before the kid had come along
listening to tinny songs on the tabletop jukebox
the couple in the booth next door,
just been up all night smoking cigarettes and talking about life,
too young to understand that their neighbours are their future
if they don’t do something soon,
like split up now,
she moves to LA and he stays behind to buy the local record store
and finds love in the form of fanatically crazed Pixies fan,
different paths traveling further away
from the good promises they keep making
as the waitress hovers with nothing else to do
but daydream about the cop she wants to screw,
his tight motorcycle pants in her mind
as she pours coffee in the kids mugs,
cute, they look like they’re in love,
she wishes she hadn’t let the last one go,
looking down at the panties she forgot to wear,
hoping he might come in with mirrored sunglasses
and stare at the tantalizing behind
without the tell-tale lines of chastity or inhibition,
she’s been working on her labial condition
with exercises she read about online,
getting her insides tighter so when he finally caves in,
she crushes him,
until then working in this joint is getting slow
as the greasy grill chef keeps checking her out,
the uniform she wears is a little too tight
and he flips the pancakes on the grill
a little too hard, a little fast,
one lands on the floor
and he picks it up in time
as the boss comes through the door
from her smoke break in the alley,
old hag been here since who knows when,
she grimaces at him and walks to the counter
to count the receipts
whilst looking out over the customers she cheats,
once she used to wait on them,
just the same everyday people
who had different hair, cars, jobs back then,
but all the same dreams
as she listened to their hopes and aspirations
between fat food inhalations,
nothing changes in this human zoo, she thinks,
and drinks the coffee spiked with whisky next to the till,
it all happens right here,
and no one ever registers the similarities
but me.