A day ends: The strippers from The Paradise
pay for their meals and chocolate milks
with thirty-seven single bills. The redhead smiles,
says, “Just don’t think about where it’s been,"
A day continues: The man in booth eight slides
into a seat at the counter. He’s been here before.
“You don’t remember me, do you?" Memory
taps its foot. Yes, you do remember.
Last time he wore a goatee, drew
with colored pencils on index cards stacked
neatly in a Crayola Art Box like the one you gave
your son last Christmas, and had thumbed his way
cross country. He now owns a car, lives in a tent,
and had been to a sweat lodge earlier that night.
“I went in looking for clarity, but came away wet,"
he confides. You pay for his coffee before he leaves.
A day begins: Jack and June. Every Sunday, 4:30 a.m.
He’s seventy-three, she’s seventy-five. He orders
one pancake, eats half. She nibbles wheat toast
with peanut butter. “No better breakfast than wheat toast
and peanut butter," she’ll say, and he’ll agree, and you’ll agree.
The same check, the same tip, the new day.
Christa Kongslie lives, writes, and works in Wisconsin. This is her first publication.
|
|
