Cafe Poem by Jeffrey Quattlebaum

Cafe



Yellow dress looks good on Mary
she fell down the steps on the way to the nursery
to see Stanley's nephew
whos only a few hours old

Dogs are barking
all along dizzy fence lines
and the fat boy wipes pork from his eyes

Its the same here in the city
like the farmers in the country
but Saul would never tell it that way

He's a butcher down on his luck
but his sandwiches keep him busy
now if he could only push his cuts

The customers ask him if he's happy
the kind that gives him sleep at night
through the train banging jungle bop
to the rain on a copper roof top
or the tired midnight horses clopping

Lee, Florida
where the hamburger steak hangs out
and down to the split and to the south
take exit seventy-three baby

The waitresses serve your meal
wearing only high heels
I had a cheeseburger and a coke
french fries and a curvy mexican girl
had a piercing shining between her legs

I didnt have enough money for the tip
but for the price it must have been already figured in
so I left her a few words
I wrote them on a napkin

I stumbled around some tables
on the way to pay the ticket
and I thought of the cheeseburger
the meat was good real juicy
and cooked through solid salty
and the marinade was certainly worcestershire

The vegetables were fresh especially
the soft deep red sliced nice and thin
and the lettuce crispy
the right shade of green to me

I felt at ease during eating
but as i walked through these tables of eyes
I began to feel uneasy
and the eyes in the dark
pierced through them
I thought of them at school
or at the dinner table with their families

Faces in the dim restauraunt
untouched plates of ten dollar sandwiches
ashtrays full of the usual
Coke four-fifty
Burger eight ninety-five
Corndog four dollars
Lapdance twenty-five

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