Poetry by Al Murray

          ​  spablab CC



​Still Life
​
“Smoking or non?”
That’s what the hostess at Perkins asked us
as if to say-
Are you looking for death while you eat your All Day Breakfast?
Or, do you want to pretend that the air isn’t as stale as the coffee?
She was already sick of us-nothing personal.
Too many years working the graveyard shift to offer anyone courtesy.

Options seemed pretty limited in our town when my sister wouldn’t buy us booze.
Our friendship was the next best thing to oblivion.
So we went to the diner.
Splitting cigarettes and drinking coffee until the waitress informed us that we had to go.
I guess it wasn’t actually bottomless. 

“Smoking or non?”
I learned for a while that a carafe of black coffee and a soft pack of cigarettes 
are a fine substitute for food.
The time we tried to pay and tip our waitress in pennies, she picked up the tab.
She’d seen a lot of shit in her time; didn’t stop her from wanting to take care of us. 
For hours in that booth you would draw still lifes, shuffling the contents of the table around.
Seasonings, jellies, creamers and enough sweeteners to rot your teeth.
You were futzing with a Smuckers packet of orange marmalade.
You told me you hate marmalade.
What a thing to remember.

I heard it was your brother who found you in the apartment.
Diner ashtray or apartment-
both get cleaned but the death lingers.

​

Al Murray [he/they] has spent the majority of his life creating community through food.
Murray currently writes in Minnesota, Midwest where he lives with his partner and dogs.

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