Beauty for Ashes Poetry Review

DR. M. P. A. Sheaffer

Tea Time

He always hunched into his gait,
After he pushed open the glass door
Of the diner up by the cemetery.
Today, he was straggling
His old blue wool muffler
Off the thin, white hairs on his neck
As he limped toward the comer by the fish tank.
Every day at 4PM,
Truckers at the counter checked their watches by him.
"Best corn muffins in town," he told the Siamese Fighting Fish.
"She'd be proud of the bran ones, too."
He slid with a creak of the tan vinyl seat
Into the booth next to the green plastic philodendron.
"She liked the real ones;
"But these—'Don't want no water'n,' I told 'er."
His head sank to his chest.
No one spoke.
Presently, a plate appeared—
One corn muffin, split, with grape jelly,
Butter--two pats--on the side,
Two glasses--one with water, one empty—,
And two napkins: one paper, one cloth--
A wine-red square cloth napkin from the dining room section
Behind the cash register
And the case with take-out cheesecake and baklava.
"The butter's for her," he explained to the air,
Arranging the empty glass and cloth napkin next to him
But I eat it sometimes, too."
He dozed off for two changes of truckers at the bar,
Then snapped to suddenly, shook
The corn muffin crumbs into the paper napkin,
Pocketed it—"For the birds"—
Carefully folding the wine-red cloth square into a triangle,
He stood it upon the formica table.
"She taught me that," he told a trucker once—
"Classy—'Anyone can serve up a square,' she had said."
As the figure shuffled past the counter,
His face half buried in his blue muffler,
A trucker glanced at the booth by the plastic philodendron
And saw the triangle, standing like folded red bird's wings
And empty water glass beside it like a monument

Dr. M. P. A. Sheaffer teaches in the Division of Humanities and Sosial Sciences at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. She holds graduate degrees in Art History, English Literature and Humanities. Dr. Sheaffer has organized poetry symposia at the national conference of the College English Association.




Isaiah 61:1-3

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