Maybe it was the early darkness that wearied my mind
and trapped my vision in white-line fever. A Waffle House
2am seems appropriate for hot tea and a plate of
“scrambled, smothered, and capped.” They have a system.
The one named, Darlene, cracks eggs and snaps orders
with the same exhale. The cook moves with robotic jolts
as the brow-pierced waitress shouts
“throw down two browns, covered, smothered, and capped.”
As a little girl, I’d visit my Nana at the lunch counter
a Manhattan five and dime. I enjoyed her bouffant hair
and cigarette voice as she took food orders and hinged
them to the carousel ornamenting Joe’s kitchen window
Sometimes tapping a silver school bell between a bottle
of ketchup and a mayonnaise jar filled with pens and change.
I sat at the end of the counter on the cherry
red vinyl of a chrome-footed stool, drinking
a chocolate shake (extra whipped cream).
Perched on the seat in my Catholic school
jumper, spinning left to right, watching
Nana pour coffee into small white cups nestled
in small white saucers then hand me change
for another play of “Sugar Sugar” on the jukebox.
The seats at the Waffle House are plastic.
Tomorrow there’ll be a ribbon around my heart.
packed away in a tin box next to a yellowed
photo of a friend who fell from a tower
before she had wings. Teardrop tarnished words
of surety folded away, the tatters pressed
between pages like pink streets of fallen petals.
