Attention Woolworth Shoppers

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places. But
those that will not break it kills.”—
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

And we sat in rapturous exhaustion
on the spinning stools in the diner
at Woolworth’s—every store had one—
attending to the mystery of donuts.
And we saw with fingers that gripped cracked
and chipped cups of coffee that the shortest
distance between the door you come in
and the door you go out was sitting right
here between the water-stained silverware
and the napkins on which we wrote prayers
before passing them to the tired and silent
waitress for absolution.  And the wailing
of the PA across the vast dust
of unmopped aisles confirmed there was nothing
left to save. And the end caps hawked their wares
with the curled tongues of long-dead hucksters.
And still we listened, as if there were time
for their thin and hollow cry to reveal
the most treasured secrets of our anemic lives.

________

Peter Grandbois is the author of eleven books. His poem, stories, and essays have appeared in over 100 magazines. He is also the fencing coach for Denison University and sometimes competes in fencing himself.