A Still Day (Day 25)

Photo: Klaus Nahr

A Still Day
by Hannah Six

It is a still day
when the sunshine
opens wide and
the waking mind
rains down,
when rivulets
of overbearing bacon
and egg steam
chart the sheet of glass
separating outward
from inward,
when the waitress pops
her round left hip,
props her tray against it,
and rattles: Are you
the pancakes?
Coffee beads her
brown eyelashes
as she, talking over her
left shoulder, pours
—right-handed
—into the morning
glow, and slaps her
hasty bill into the
convex puddle of
strawberry syrup, where
the ink immediately
begins to run.
It is a still day, when
the bell on the swinging
door rings, depositing
another high-mileage
pile of damp
wool and leather,
solid and gasping,
on the salty white tile,
sails furling, sighing
safe harbor. And still,
as fourteen lowered eyes
dart doorward,
wolflike, ready to lunge,
should the unknown
reveal itself
in the mystery of
one hundred and twenty-three
juice glass mirrors.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six