The Two

    When he gets off work at Packard， they meet

    outside a diner on Grand Boulevard. He's tired，

    a bit depressed¹， and smelling the exhaustion²

    on his own breath， he kisses her carefully

    on her left cheek. Early April， and the weather

    has not decided³ if this is spring， winter， or what.

    The two gaze upwards⁴ at the sky which gives

    nothing away： the low clouds break here and there

    and let in tiny slices of a pure blue heaven.

    The day is like us， she thinks； it hasn't decided

    what to become. The traffic light at Linwood

    goes from red to green and the trucks start up，

    so that when he says， "Would you like to eat？"

    she hears a jumble⁵ of words that mean nothing，

    though spiced with things she cannot believe，

    "wooden Jew" and "lucky meat." He's been up

    late， she thinks， he's tired of the job， perhaps tired

    of their morning meetings， but when he bows

    from the waist and holds the door open

    for her to enter the diner， and the thick

    odor of bacon frying and new potatoes

    greets them both， and taking heart she enters

    to peer through the thick cloud of tobacco smoke

    to the see if "their booth" is available.

    F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that there were no

    second acts in America， but he knew neither

    this man nor this woman and no one else

    like them unless he stayed late at the office

    to test his famous one liner， "We keep you clean

    Muscatine，" on the woman emptying

    his waste basket. Fitzgerald never wrote

    with someone present， except for this woman

    in a gray uniform whose comings and goings

    went unnoticed even on those December evenings

    she worked late while the snow fell silently

    on the window sills and the new fluorescent⁶ lights

    blinked on and off. Get back to the two， you say.

    Not who ordered poached eggs， who ordered

    only toast and coffee， who shared the bacon

    with the other， but what became of the two

    when this poem ended， whose arms held whom，

    who first said "I love you" and truly meant it，

    and who misunderstood the words， so longed

    for， and yet still so unexpected， and began

    suddenly to scream and curse until the waitress

    asked them both to leave. The Packard plant closed

    years before I left Detroit， the diner was burned

    to the ground in '67， two years before my oldest son

    fled to Sweden to escape the American dream.

    "And the lovers？" you ask. I wrote nothing about lovers.

    Take a look. Clouds， trucks， traffic lights， a diner， work，

    a wooden shoe， East Moline， poached eggs， the perfume

    of frying bacon， the chaos⁷ of language， the spices

    of spent breath after eight hours of night work.

    Can you hear all I feared and never dared to write？

    Why the two are more real than either you or me，

    why I never returned to keep them in my life，

    how little I now mean to myself or anyone else，

    what any of this could mean， where you found

    the patience to endure these truths and confessions⁸？