Providence, RI
Existential Field Notes: Diner
If secrets are transmitted here
no neon will say, just the same
on-unless-it’s-off messages of
abundance. Bottomless coffee,
sure, and five pages of menu —
one alone for pie and pudding,
art deco Jell-O. Decades ago I
nestled in a vinyl booth while
outside Providence thrummed
deeply into the graveyard shift.
The Silver Top no longer sits
adrift in a field of periwinkle
gravel; I’ve heard it’s reborn,
polished chrome and all, some-
where new. Imagine: placed so
gently that no sutures remain,
two tones of blue tile tesseled
from floors upward. Counter
service and booth service. Go
and sit. Find time, ease hunger.
Hancock, ME
Fingers are an invitation
a branched
gathering inspecting the world
even if you doubt evolution
as what drove them to be
the world desires contact
tapped out in each digit’s
time & so souls (even if
you doubt
them as adherents
to our bodies’ ancient ruins)
crave context typed into being
along filter-tipped nerves gangled
slick & dry beyond the wrist’s
stiff terminal. Here it’s morning,
early June under
grey ceiling, I’m awake
& barefoot on wide pine boards
that stick slightly in this open-sash
season’s humidity, slick varnish
making plain short-lived damp ghosts
of heel and toe.
Michael Mercurio lives and writes in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. His poems have appeared in Palette Poetry, Sierra (the magazine of the Sierra Club), Lily Poetry Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Sugar House Review, The Inflectionist Review, and elsewhere. You can find out more about Michael at http://poetmercurio.com/.
