Breakfast at Eats by Laura Winkelspecht

Eats has a counter
with stools sprouting along one side,

stainless steel stems with red vinyl blossoms,
and tables waffle-ironed into rows.

The breakfast special—
two eggs, bacon or sausage,

hash browns and toast—
will run you six bucks or less.

Through the pick-up window,
underpaid cooks sweat

over sausage and Denver omelets,
telling stories that start with, “Me and …”

and always end with “Wha!”
The waitress wears an apron with pockets,

hoping her tips incubate like Joeys,
and mature into grocery money

by the end of the week.
With pencils in her ponytail,

she carries overloaded plates
balanced across one arm

to gray-haired men in baseball caps.
The dishwasher’s cousin pushes

the charity of a bottomless cup
to small-town extremes

while he sits with a newspaper,
coffee rings circling unread ads.

The clink of spoons against cups
punctuates conversations

with an uneven syncopation.
The neon sign in the window

blinks its modest promise:
Eats.



Laura Winkelspecht is a poet and writer from Wisconsin who writes with the hope of finding lightning among the lightning bugs. She has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic, One Sentence Poems, Rat’s Ass Review, Poets Reading the News, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.