Everybody, soon or late, sits down
to a banquet of consequence.
R. L. Stevenson
The sterile sameness of the fast food joint
is interrupted by her entrance. Business
suit black, expensive splash of red scarf
around her neck, sensible shoes, computer
bag wearing a groove in her shoulder.
My table, claimed three hours ago,
holds books, notes, computer, almost empty
pens and breakfast trash. I pretend
to write. My muse is constipated. Now
I’m drinking coffee fortified by shots
from a not quite hidden pint of Jameson.
The woman I’m watching orders:
double cheeseburger plain, coffee black.
Card in/out of the payment machine.
No cash for her two-sixty-nine meal.
She comes to my quiet corner, sits
in the booth closest to me, glances
my way. I lean towards her, hold up
my Irish, nod at her coffee cup. She
doesn’t smile but picks up her cup, takes
a long swallow, lifts off the lid, tips it my
way. I fill her cup from my bottle. She swirls
three times, takes another long drink, tips
it my way again. I pour. She swirls, turns
to her burger and eats. I watch. Then
I gather my books, papers, computer
put them in my backpack. She looks over.
Her meal is finished, the lid back on her cup.
I leave. She follows.
Jim Bourey is an old poet who divides his year between the Adirondack Mountains and Dover, Delaware. His chapbook “Silence, Interrupted” was published in 2015 by the Broadkill River Press. His work has appeared in Mojave River Review, Paddock Review, Gargoyle and the Broadkill Review and other journals and anthologies. He was first runner up in the Faulkner-Wisdom Poetry Competition in 2012 and 2016. He has served as an adjudicator for the Poetry Out Loud competition in Delaware. In his North Country months, he is active with the St. Lawrence Area Poets and has taken part in Art/Poetry projects in Saranac Lake.
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