We were in New Jersey this weekend for a family wedding. The humidity was so oppressive it was like being in a swimming pool fully clothed. It made the words come out slow as molasses.
You’d think poems from the weekend would be about the wedding. How the rain was just enough to disguise the tears of everyone watching a beautiful young woman marry the man of her dreams.
Or how the floorboards of the old B&B where the wedding was held creaked with dances of celebrations in years past.
Or how there really are fireflies.
No.
Our poems were about the truckstop just blocks from our hotel with an Iron Skillet attached!
Some things that didn’t make it into our poems:
The trucker with dreadlocks giving our waitress a back massage
The 5-hour energy drinks next to the condoms next to the cigarettes
The scale in the ladies room that would tell you your weight AND give you a message of the day
The waitress who’d never eaten grits
That some people eat their grits with salt and pepper, some with butter and sugar, and some with butter, sugar and ketchup!!
That the “heart healthy” salad bar had gravy, stuffing AND macaroni salad because Friday night is “turkey night”
That 24/7, gravy is complimentary with all breakfast items
That the bacon was so good it belongs in the museum of bacon
But damn, it only took a little eavesdropping and some observation while eating the best rye toast ever to get two completely different poems from two completely different poets about the very same thing. I added some family things to mine because it wasn’t my family. Not in a bad way at all.
Now normally I’d post the poems here but noooo….they’re already being submitted and you have to wait until they’re accepted.
Get thee to a truckstop, eat, eavesdrop and bring a pad and pen because you won’t get out of there without a poem of your own!!
Tobi Cogswell will never be able to do enough cardio to fully enjoy diners on a regular basis. So she’ll dream about them and write about her dreams. Her fifth and latest chapbook “Lit Up” from Kindred Spirit Press has food in it because that’s what she writes about – food, loss, failing bodies and sex. She is the co-editor and co-publisher of San Pedro River Review (www.sprreview.com). a journal of poetry and art with a much broader range of tastes.