Ever hang out?
Stopping in for a cup
A different town
city
only a vague map
to show the way
Finding the familiar patterns
in alien territory
different faces
Same smiles
Same places
though separated by miles
the clatter
the workers
Greeting the familiar
and the foreign
every day
afternoon
night
instant friends
Maybe you’re somebody
a good tipper
Perhaps you’ll stay
become familiar
The Yes’m old man
carrying the tub
heavier than he
clean-cut college boy
hoping to move up
or on
Thirty-something manager
Daddy
Big brother
best-friend
slave driver
to teenagers
Blonde-bouffant-ed middle-aged waitress
crisply professional
serves coffee as if
it were brain surgery
Been doin this for 30 years
seen ‘em come and go
Laments the way
the place has gone to hell.
The crack-head stealing tips
The slime ball making moves
on 15-yr-old partimeonlythrutherush hostesses
The working mother
Just doin it for the kids
Accepting coupons
and candy for tips
No real identity
Their mom, his ol’ lady
coffee-shop waitress
Smiles the most at work.
The faggot who tells gay jokes
teaching tolerance to rednecks
The fat guy bonding
with pretty girls in the
adreneline intoxicating intimacy
of chaosbusyshift
Closest he’ll ever get
All multi-colored
covered in grease
and gravy
Putting in their time
and doing what they live for
Older couple having
coffee after church
The hobo
addressed as Mister
and being shown the utmost
respect
Three women
yakking about nothing
finding one another
hilarious
Working Joes
ogling waitresses
Families sharing
wiping babies’ chins
Scraggley young couple
washed-out youth sagging
no where to be
nothing to do
scrounging change for the jukebox
Bikers on break
with their bitches
The goldleatherblack
all tight.
Huddling together amid the
Chatter
Clatter
Clinking
ringing
buzzing
sizzle
hum
cigarettes
cigars
pancakes
Providing
caffeine-induced inspiration
for the
One-top
drinking coffee
killing time
writing lame poetry.
