Comfort Food
Feb 21 2010


All-day breakfast
in the afternoon,
at a green Formica counter
on a backless spinning stool.
Where the coffee’s poured
before you ask
— hot, black, full.

Her name-tag says “Dorothy”,
handling the customers
commanding the short-order cooks.
She flirts with the lads
is rude with the regulars;
who banter and kibitz together,
and bask
in the familiar pleasure
of her well-meant slurs.

A thick ceramic mug.
Eggs, sunny-side up,
hash browns, sausage, toast.
And a side order
of wisecracks
bad jokes.
You look at the eggs
and they look back,
two bright round yolks
floating in butter
staring woefully up at you,
your hunger undone.
So you send them back,
ask for scrambled, flapjacks
a rasher of ham.
And Dorothy, in her usual frantic dash
returns with a soggy yellow mass —
eggs,
with the personality
beaten out of them.

A belated lunch
with all the salt and fat and calories
to satisfy a man
of substance.
Except, that is
for the blueberry Danish
in a stained brown bag
for after.