Poetry (this actually happened).
I sit alone in a diner. The grill sizzles.
Conversations that compete for space fill the air
and my ears.
My cheeks
are softly burning from slushing down hill in the snow
and my feet are uncomfortable and damp.
An old man stops,
staring intently at me.
I glance up and smile at him.
He is skinny,
old-man skinny when you
are getting ready to shut your eyes and finally rest,
really rest for the first time,
nothing left but
some skin and some muscle,
mostly bones.
He wears a tweed suit,
glasses,
stlyishly aged.
He asks me if I've heard the one about
the clown who had gone to the hospital.
It seems like the background noises
have stopped clamoring; a sudden envelope
of silence.
An envelope conataining ripeness
and decay,
myself and
the old man.
'No,' I say, 'why did he have to go?'
The old man gives me a toothy grin,
'because he was feeling funny.'
I notice a hook where his right hand should be,
or once was.
I imagine how many ways
it could have been lost along the path
to this diner,
his smile full of life.
Clever smile,
hiding the story of his life
behind his teeth.
All he wanted to tell me though,
was about a sick clown.
The voices rise, fall, and fill up all the
spaces between my face and
the old man's face. The grill sizzles.
Conversations that compete for space fill the air
and my ears.
My cheeks
are softly burning from slushing down hill in the snow
and my feet are uncomfortable and damp.
An old man stops,
staring intently at me.
I glance up and smile at him.
He is skinny,
old-man skinny when you
are getting ready to shut your eyes and finally rest,
really rest for the first time,
nothing left but
some skin and some muscle,
mostly bones.
He wears a tweed suit,
glasses,
stlyishly aged.
He asks me if I've heard the one about
the clown who had gone to the hospital.
It seems like the background noises
have stopped clamoring; a sudden envelope
of silence.
An envelope conataining ripeness
and decay,
myself and
the old man.
'No,' I say, 'why did he have to go?'
The old man gives me a toothy grin,
'because he was feeling funny.'
I notice a hook where his right hand should be,
or once was.
I imagine how many ways
it could have been lost along the path
to this diner,
his smile full of life.
Clever smile,
hiding the story of his life
behind his teeth.
All he wanted to tell me though,
was about a sick clown.
The voices rise, fall, and fill up all the
spaces between my face and
the old man's face. The grill sizzles.