Mildred, The Miss Albany Diner, 1957
The groaning ash drops
from her smoldering cigarette,
she leans on the graying counter
peering past
the pair of demented coffee urns
toward the accused
wooden men who,
perched upright upon stools,
eyes glued on their racing forms,
pray that she will stay
her stare.
“It’s bad,” she says,
“when your man
turns out to be a bum.”
Condemned
they fall
upon their hash-browns;
beyond the nicotine window
a cold wind pounds
down from Canada
and slaps the face
of the insolent street sign.