"Awkward"

A new poem by my old friend Richard Edwin Skubish, a man not heretofore given to poetry.

*

Awkward


The waitress faced us together in adjoining booths. Two strangers pretending to not notice each other - sitting together at an interuppted table.

You asked for cinnamon.

I pretend to be lost in business or mundane thoughts about photovoltaics or flooded soccer fields or milage to the next little town.

And you asked for cinnamon.

Southern drawl and you live way to north for it. Soft, shy voice, but you look like a powerful personality I once knew.

A personality that would have never asked for cinnamon.

OK, I AM lost in business and photovoltaics and flooded soccer fields. I know the milage to the next little town - to the tenth.

Why can't I ask you why you asked for cinnamon?

*

Skoob, as we have always known him, is a traveling salesman of high-performance chemistry equipment. We grew up together in the river town of Granite City, Illinois.