FREDRIC HILDEBRAND POETRY
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Picture

At the Ojibwa All-Night Diner

Nothing 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


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