A Sixty-Two Cent Meal

A solitary night
in a crash-and-dive coffee joint
nestled away in a lost boom town
trying to gain a second breath
in its hills
and rocks
with suburban onlookers cam-cording waterfalls
or dams that leak a small stream of water
from a Depression-era lake
where a tree limb sometimes teeters on its edge
and becomes an instant success
for faraway television nights of wine
and cheese
while here it is only coffee
and water
a sixty-two cent meal
amid country gossip
and an underpaid waitress.