A Filthy Day
Everyone stamping and shaking it off
at the diner door kept calling that filthy day
for what it was, letting damp chill whoosh
through bacon laden haze. No toast today,
bread truck never made it, she told us,
clattering plates that ran down her arms
before us. Her rumpled Steelers sweater
smelled like cigarettes, and she was a far cry
lost to time from the chirpy tarts in the Greek’s
aluminum fake dining car on the highway,
making their saucy eyes at the construction guys
brought in from Texas to throw together
the new chicken abattoir for a Chinese outfit.
It was what it was, and we were what we were,
and fluorescent tubes over us had no choice
but to affix their own monotonous flickers.
Someone always had to haul along a grandkid,
but they beetled away at their phone gizmos
and barely existed except to get their hair
tousled coming and going. Slugs of rain began
pounding the big window and ran like glue
down the pane. No use complaining,
a latecomer replied at the gusty door, no one
listens anyways. Then came a loud snapping bang
and the yellow light went, leaving us sitting
in brown light. Time for you old coots
to go home and see if you’ve got any power
there, she told us. And since she owned the place
and was the queen of our morning, we did
just that.
at the diner door kept calling that filthy day
for what it was, letting damp chill whoosh
through bacon laden haze. No toast today,
bread truck never made it, she told us,
clattering plates that ran down her arms
before us. Her rumpled Steelers sweater
smelled like cigarettes, and she was a far cry
lost to time from the chirpy tarts in the Greek’s
aluminum fake dining car on the highway,
making their saucy eyes at the construction guys
brought in from Texas to throw together
the new chicken abattoir for a Chinese outfit.
It was what it was, and we were what we were,
and fluorescent tubes over us had no choice
but to affix their own monotonous flickers.
Someone always had to haul along a grandkid,
but they beetled away at their phone gizmos
and barely existed except to get their hair
tousled coming and going. Slugs of rain began
pounding the big window and ran like glue
down the pane. No use complaining,
a latecomer replied at the gusty door, no one
listens anyways. Then came a loud snapping bang
and the yellow light went, leaving us sitting
in brown light. Time for you old coots
to go home and see if you’ve got any power
there, she told us. And since she owned the place
and was the queen of our morning, we did
just that.
