About a Waitress

I live on a charming block that resembles the nicer bits of Park Slope, Brooklyn. It boasts an archetypal American diner, Pete's Famous Pizza, where cheap solid fare is offerred in a timeless atmosphere (cell phones aside, you can pretend it's 1975 & sustain the illusion for the duration of a meat loaf dinner). One waitress in particular has captured my imagination for years now. She's olive-skinned, raven-haired, not terribly bright & absolutely gorgeous. She doesn't belong in post-9-11 Philadelphia. She belongs in pre-WWI Europe. To my mind, everyone w/ even a spark of poetic Earth-magic ("duende") belongs in pre-WWI Europe (including Lorca!) From Gertie Stein's parlor to Apollinaire's efficiency, those were the glory days of "post-avant". That's where my imagination takes me when I drink in the Botticellian curves of my diner sweetheart. Here's the poem, "To a Diner Waitress":

You were not born to mind the counter
at Pete's Famous Pizza.

You were born to be an Italian peasant
in a thick black skirt.
I'd walk w/ you along dusty streets
of some green provincial town.
We'd lay making love in a field,
your skirt hitched up.
You'd have a child by me as I
was off fighting World War I.
Then I'd be dead and you'd take
other lovers who were also me.

You were not born to mind the counter
at Pete's Famous Pizza.

You will always be to me as you were
in those rolling verdant fields.
You will always be to me Demeter,
scattering grain from the heft of yr hips.
With every corned beef club, I come closer
to the essence of your duende.
With every side of fries, I come closer
to encompassing your cleavage.

You were not born to mind the counter
at Pete's Famous Pizza.

If you have an adventurous soul up for a bit o' goddess worship, stop by Pete's Famous Pizza (21st & Cherry), & you'll be amply rewarded. I promise...