I · The Hash-Brown Canticle
Blessed are the cooks at 3 a.m.
for they shall inherit what is left
of the kingdom. The truckers come
like penitents, heavy with miles,
ordering eggs as if eggs were a prayer
they had forgotten the words to.
The jukebox plays only Patsy Cline
and a warped gospel record
no one remembers buying.
This is the liturgy of the interstate:
coffee black as the confessional,
toast buttered with whatever hope
still spreads.
II · For the Waitress With the Name Tag "Dorothy"
Dorothy, who has seen
the tornado and stayed,
who refills the cup
without asking,
who knows that every customer
is someone else's prodigal son,
someone else's unreturned phone call:
May your tips be generous.
May your feet stop hurting
at forty-five, as promised.
May the cook stop calling you "kid"
in a way that makes you feel
older than the vinyl booths.
May the bus come late,
so you have five more minutes
of the fluorescent quiet,
which is the only quiet
you have ever owned.
III · Nighthawks, Revised
The painting got it wrong.
The couple is not in love.
They are discussing
whether to tell the man at the counter
that his fly is open.
The man at the counter
knows his fly is open.
He is waiting to see
how long politeness lasts
in a world without windows.
The diner has no closing time.
This is its theology:
whoever knocks shall be opened,
whoever asks shall be given coffee,
whoever stays too long
shall become the furniture,
shall learn the language
of formica and chrome,
shall one day look up
from the bottomless cup
and realize the road outside
has changed its mind
about where it was going.
Amen, says the road.
Amen, says the egg.
Amen, says Dorothy,
who has seen everything
and therefore believes in nothing
but the refill.