The Ballad of the Man in the White Lunch

Former site of
the last lumpless oatmeal
east of the Occident

lodge toast & oleo
curled into a cone
& softened with tea

reach through the bars
of the nectarine crate
giant white man dread

brushes blood from the marble
passes the HP sauce bottle tower
spears his bouletten with a pin

smoked oysters toothpicked
on the Greyhound to Terrace thus
between the institution

& the raw end of the polisher
in November of '77
threescore & ten got you a hot tap

a heater, a prayer-blanket
of sky & all the fortune cookies
you could eat vitamins

a cubic yard of steam inhaled
pivoting from the sprouts
in the lobby a labyrinth b & w

Electrohome dispensing
afterschool Dark Shadows, Funorama,
The Kissing Man, Edge of Sleep...




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