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At the Ojibwa All-Night DinerNothing else open this time of night
between Spooner and Woodruff. Old man and woman shuffle to the first table. Worn wood chairs scrape across the chipped linoleum floor as they sit. Waitress scribbles on her green pad, jet black eyes and hair, and teenage resignation. Fry cook father slumps in his chair and reads a newspaper. Kitchen bell interrupts Hank Williams belting “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” on the chrome and neon Wurlitzer. Old man steadies his sandwich, probably a cold ham and cheese on whole wheat with mustard and onion but no pickle, carefully cuts it corner to corner, silently slides one half onto his wife’s plate as she wearily adjusts her glasses and unrolls a napkin. Hank’s voice wails: “Did you ever see a night so slow as time goes draggin’ by? I’m so lonesome I could cry.” Mill Prize for Poetry Honorable Mention 10/17 Published in Millwork, January 2018 Published in Verse-Virtual, July 2018 |