Bowls
Sitting in a
booth at Andy’s Diner
I can’t help but
eye a fellow alone
so thin he’d fit
though most gaps
between prison
bars.
At a table set
for six he’s staring
straight ahead
as if a defendant
minutes away
from a verdict,
hands clenched
in prayer
real or
disguised maybe hoping
for extradition
to Maine
Idaho or Long
Island.
The outcome is a
mixing bowl
of mashed
potatoes and a basket
too small for
the bread it holds.
Attentively
dividing the butter
among thick
slices and the spuds,
he dines
robotically, oblivious
or indifferent
to his audience.
His methods
whisk me back years
to Laura’s
Luncheonette
where a man,
much heftier and not
as assiduous
with toast
and an identical
vessel
containing a
wealth
of thick
oatmeal.
A woman beside
him, chin
on palm, smiles
in amazement.
Had her friend
somehow made bail
and is making up
for stingy
prison portions
I wondered.
Devouring, as if
any second
a judge would
renege, send
him to place
where porridge
is instant,
servings small.
A chunk flies
off his spoon,
lands on his
lady’s arm
and they laughed
away
any early
morning counter
grogginess the
caffeine missed.
I do at Andy’s
as at Laura’s, sentence
the newest
member the brotherhood
of the mixing
bowl to an evening
ice cream
helping
of equal
largesse—
chocolate
sprinkles
like the filings
off a thousand
jailbreaks.
- Thomas Michael
McDade 2012
Tom McDade lives in Monroe, Connecticut with his wife, no kids or pets. He's a
former computer programmer who served two hitches in the U.S. Navy. He's been
most recently published in Literarily Erotic:
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