3 January 2009
Eat'n Park
---How'r y'all doin' t'day? -- she asked, with a smile, looking me in the eye.
She ushered us to our table and had the coffee ready before we could even open a menu. She was about forty, her dirty blond hair fell like a mop over her ears. She glided between the tables, her movements economical. She carried a pot of decaf and a folksy accent to every booth, wore a pin or two on her apron and a smile on her face.
Corey and I talked about New York and Chicago, compared New Haven to Evanston, discussed life in Moscow and life in Masury. Lower registers of English used to bother me. I tried hard to purify my speech when I was eighteen. I wanted to heighten my language so that I could write poetry, philosophize, contemplate international politics. But she spoke so freely and easily. She looked out for everyone---the old woman sitting by herself in the corner, the couple in the booth to our left, the family with kids behind us. A man waved for his check. I finished my hamburger. Corey needed a napkin. Slipped under his saucer, plate taken away, a stack placed on the edge of the table --- just in case --- she winked, disappearing into the kitchen. No, a poet can't write with language alone.
Kupensky, #2
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