The Hungry Poet: My Life in Food — Eating Alone in an Empty Diner (POEM)

Read this exclusive poem from Andrew Jamison's first collection Happy Hour, which you can buy a signed copy of here.

Eating Alone in an Empty Diner

There’s nothing romantic about it,

eating alone in an empty diner;

there’s nothing healthy about it either,

ordering the burger with American cheese

(which isn’t cheese at all) and the Coke

and the deep-fat-fried-from-frozen fries;

there’s really nothing new about any of this:

the highly strung, chatty New Yorkettes that pass

with those silly little fluffballs, hairballs for dogs

which everyone seems to admire but me,

and iced coffee which everyone’s drinking but me,

wearing shorts which everyone’s wearing but me,

and flip-flops which everyone’s flipping

and flopping up and down and around in but me,

so maybe that explains it all — I’ve thought — me sitting there

eating alone in an empty diner

on Houston Street near Washington Square,

asking the waiter to repeat himself,

away from wherever everyone else was,

getting to the ice-cube-water finish of my drink,

handed the change and handing back the tip,

somewhere near the end of happy hour.