BREAKFAST AT HARDEES
Elderly person
Sitting there alone at your table
So quietly, so still, so evidently thoughtful,
Gazing out the window
Not at distance but at…years?
You are but one of several oldsters here this morning
Each sitting alone, having breakfast alone,
Not looking at the others.
Will I be one of you in ten or fifteen years?
Or tomorrow?
Who are you?
I see now that you are a woman
Of late sixties or more;
I couldn’t even discern your gender
Until I saw your lipstick;
Your too-short thinning gray hair
And craggy face and large frame
And slacks and sweater with padded elbows
Gives you that certain genderless look,
So I bid you a silent apology
For being at first unable to credit you
With your most essential self, your gender;
Until that was clear you could have been
One of those aging, lost, college professors
Or a suburban recluse, anonymous now in retirement;
Having recognized your sex I wonder
Are you a farmer’s widow now living in town
Waiting to die? Where is your family?
Why are you here having breakfast alone at Hardees?
Breakfast ought to be a social time,
Shared with at least…somebody.
Who are you?
What are you thinking of
As you sit there so quietly, hardly moving
No breakfast in front of you?
Did you already finish and bus your own table
To the trash bin according to fast food joint custom
Before I got here, or
Are you being reflective and alone
Before you decide to go order?
What are you thinking of?
Does your mind go back over years
To memories of children born and reared
And now scattered across faraway states?
To some long ago lover who would have thrilled you
If you had not, now to your regret,
Said No, holding to some Puritan ethic
That seemed important at the time?
Or are you just wondering
How to pay your heating bill this winter?
What are you thinking of?
Who were you? Who are you now?
Ah, how easily we misperceive and misjudge
For I see now an elderly man is joining you
Obviously your man, presumably your husband
Because he joins you with that easy
Coming together without words or acknowledgement
That is a product of taking each other’s presence
For granted over many, many years.
He walks with a jaunty gait for an old fellow,
Moving light and sure on the long legs
That support his ample belly.
He has good humor creases around his mouth and eyes.
Seeing him tells me so much more about you.
Wasn’t he always the tease, the dynamic rascal,
And you always the serious one, the still water?
You seemed so alone only because he wasn’t with you,
Because he took so long getting here with your breakfast
Because the fast food line was long this morning
With old and young and families and people alone.
There is no telling how many happy and sad memories
You and he share, going back over the long years
Of your lives together.
How presumptuous and how very mistaken
Were my earlier perceptions and speculations about you.
Now that I perceive the truth
(or am I still presumptuously missing it?)
I wonder a whole new, different set of questions
About you and he in your presumed lifetime together;
I wonder about your youth, your courtship,
Your early childrearing years together,
Your mutual lifestyle and occupation and where you live…
Until, wisely, I decide to stop it altogether,
To cease my silent intrusions on your deserved privacy;
Go on, share your quiet private breakfast together.
And I, I too shall finish up my own
Breakfast at Hardees, alone,
Then I’ll leave here.
Alone.
Don Coffey
