Brandywine Diner – 1959
Brandywine Diner
It’s three o’clock on a Sunday morning
a curtain of smoke surrounds you
at Brandywine Diner.
Two men share a booth, both sip coffee
from small white cups, their finger’s play
with white bags of sugar.
Across the aisle, a young girl sits alone.
She stares through her personal fog.
She holds the wrong side of her cup, and
crushes one cigarette, and lights another –
fog thickens.
A man hung over a black and white counter
leans on his arms, his clothes soiled by coffee
he spilled and peeks between his fingers
into the mirror hung, below a stack of
Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, Shredded Wheat –
the face of a stranger.
A gust of wind pushes the glass door, open –
blinded by iridescent green.
The man leaning on the counter –
opens his eyes when shimmering green catches
his attention, and attention of a man
reading the paper – startles the girl smoking her
third cigarette.
She struts past the counter and all eyes stare as
she flops into a booth, in the corner, next to a
man wearing a Hells Angel jacket.
Then, I poked my finger into a slit, in the vinyl
seat, picturing the person who held the knife.
