It’s dawn in Providence,
the 23rd of June,
and I’m in a diner,
downing over-easy eggs and guzzling coffee
and trying to put together,
in my head,
the misadventures, coincidences,
acts of God, turns of the card,
that got me to this place
at this very time.
When I was a kid, I never imagined
that I’d be sitting inside
a long, gray steel cocoon,
ten thousand miles away,
in the company of a half dozen or so
unshaved strangers,
a couple grumbling to each other,
another reading the paper,
and one with a cap that reads “Teamsters.”
To be honest,
I don’t know what I was thinking then.
Become a rock star, maybe.
Or work on the railways like my father.
How about medicine.
Or rocket science.
But not mopping up yolk
with toast,
not nodding my head
as a waitress asks,
“Would you like more coffee?”
This is the present to be sure.
But it never was the future.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Hawaii Pacific Review, Dalhousie Review , and Qwerty with work upcoming in Blueline, Willard and Maple and Clade Song.