She sat with shaking shoulders at
a small round table closest to
the diner's black-mirrored window pane.
Harsh lights reflected, sorrow too.
She'd asked for coffee, nothing else
and stared with tear-filled eyes at me.
"You're old and crusty!" patrons whine,
but unconcerned I'll never be.
Well, it was getting awful late,
and no one else was in the place.
I grabbed some Joe and sat me down.
"Hello," I say, once face to face.
She gawks at me, then wipes her eyes.
Her wriggly smile, it almost works.
"I'm here because those guys outside
all whistled at me. They're real jerks!"
"Nah, gal, what's really brung those tears?"
I ask and watch her give me thought.
She's wary 'bout a coot like me.
A fool she'd be if she were not.
Don't reckon I much scared her though.
Soon she was spouting her sad tale
while twisting napkins into knots,
her face tear-streaked and mighty pale.
"Those Japanese surprised us all
and then our country joined the war.
My Tom became a brave Marine.
He could be fighting anywhere.
"And when he left he said he'd write
a letter every day to me.
I love that man! I really do,
but all this month came only three.
"I'm so afraid he won't come home
because the news is always grim.
I work swing shift on Zenith's line,
then come straight home and cry for him."
She wasn't young, yet not a girl.
"But plenty old to love," I thought.
I prob'ly should have held my tongue.
Was thinking of those guys who fought.
"Yeah, nasty things I've read about.
Corregidor and then Bataan.
McArthur's gone, says he'll return.
I'm hoping he's an honest man."
Wrong words, bad timing, too, I guess.
She frowned at me, pushed back her chair.
"Thank you, sir, but I should go
on home . . . perhaps a letter there."
My gut said she'd wait out the war
because of love not loyalty.
Not like my wife in World War One
who soon forgot her vows and me.
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| Writing Prompt |
Write a poem about love gone wrong or lost love. It can be sad, raw, or just plain angry (Just keep it clean). Express the emotions of the darker side of love. Any style or length. Be creative. |
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Love Bites
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Author Notes
This painting, which he titled "The Automat," is by Edward Hopper whose most famous work is "Night Hawks."
I set this story in a fictitious diner somewhere in Chicago.
"Joe" was a slang term in the 40s for coffee.
Zenith mostly made radios then at their biggest plant in Chicago. The swing-shift was from 4 pm to midnight.
The Japanese struck Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) and Manila simultaneously. American soldiers who survived the Manila attack took refuge for months on an island called Corregidor. But finally they surrendered and were taken on the infamous Bataan Death March where many died. General MacArthur escaped to Australia, but vowed to return. He did.
Many thousands of Marines lost their lives fighting on remote islands in the Pacific like Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima. Whether "Tom" came home I'll leave up to you to decide.
World War One lasted from 1914-1918. America entered that war in 1917 and fought battles mostly in France.
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