Dive Diners

Arrival from Heathrow Airport, England
—Atlantic City International Airport,  
New Jersey, 1974, 03:00 Hours
 
The brown station wagon  
bulleted southward
becoming a très grande vitesse
through sleeping suberbs and cities
 
Comets of street-lights  
illuminated dirty windows
where I pretended to sleep  
cradled in an incubator of glass—
a rusted, oil-leaking nest
 
There's no lullaby  
like rubbered-asphalt  
between dark routes  
of small, uknown towns
cigarettes glowing  
between parental talons
 
Dictators, kidnappers of youth  
from motherland and friends
The rustle of refreshment bags. . .  
pepsi and egg-salad sandwiches
curled from their front seat  
 
Somewhere in the concrete tundra
of this god forsaken land
thrust upon me like a beehive
hairdo for school photographs
was something resembling a past  
 
Hours later, another day
broke the horizon of monotony;
the bullet slowed, turned
into a parking lot of familiarity—
 
S  T U  C  K  Y  S
King George, Virgina, 07:00 hours
 
where did I know this from. . .  
 
Its aisles were bright and welcoming
from a post-adolescence crisis. . .
souveniers, somewhat seedy bathrooms
typical diner food: pancakes, eggs, orange juice
 
Getting back into the car, my father winked
handed me a pecan nut log with creamed nougat!
Now that I remembered. . .
it was the first time I'd smiled  
in weeks of boxes and goodbyes  
 
Listen...I heard this once  
and it's as close as it gets
to the truth:  
 
When feeling lost  
and unable to belong;  
when too young to run
or nowhere to go. . .
certain places and food  
will always bring you home
~

Too young to question, my society
as we heard the bombers drone    
huddled cold and cramped, listened for the distant thud  
hot ash melting holes, in the soft white snow  
as brave, as brave could be, sitting on my mothers knee  
   
And I still feel the pangs of hunger    
like a gulls harsh call  
its urgency, for that alarm cannot be stalled  
borne the cross that gnaws, and dreamed    
of the Golden Arches    
   
The potholed road in Sarajevo's hell  
at the end of snipers alley  
I dreamed. as dusty masonry fell  
the dream of manna in a bun  
and the life before atrocities begun

Was not the name of this diner.

I don’t recall its name anymore.
It was torn down over twenty years ago.

Strangely-
given its prime real estate locale,
nothing has been built in its place.

What’s left are open space memories by those of us who frequented it in its hey day.  

I remember its dark faux paneled walls. The fake Corinthian leather seats that made your thighs sweat in summer. Chipped linoleum table tops always sticky from who knows what.

If the cigarette smell didn’t offend you, the sour smell of drunken twenty-somethings choking down over cooked eggs and burned toast to sober up before heading home, would.

God, how I miss this place-
whose name I can’t remember.

The wee hours spent discussing a successful night bar hopping.

Intense conversations of potential relationships that would never happen.

Inevitably we couldn’t read the name that went with the scored number. Or, the lipstick used to write the digits bled and now it was anyone’s guess if it was a three or a five.

The old timers always sat at the counter stools nursing their coffee and pastry.

The college set always convened at the tables in the center- as if prepping for their future board room meetings.

The waitresses were as worn out as the filthy carpeting, but they enjoyed the hubbub of youthful energy despite dismal tips.

Good times, bad times,
tears or laughter-events that shaped who we eventually
became were all part of this diner.

Whose name I can’t...






SLEEPY TIME DINER!