All children in Smalltown celebrate
Birthdays at Bigboat pizza place,
A moveable feast on Saturday morning.
Smalltown has no BigMac space.
Bigboat has a crusty grill and a two pan oven;
There are beer taps, baseball caps, coffee urns,
Pots buffed, a parrot stuffed, cup racks, plate stacks,
A photo of Callipso, and green plastic ferns.
Six trestle tables and seven booths
Make thirteen pools of girls and boys
Waiting under Mothymoose’s one glass eye
For icecream cake and plastic toys.
Lines of mothers, sometimes fathers, wind
Serpentine from serving counter to their party
Like corridors of servitors, laden, with trays,
With eyes glassy, laughs brassy, smiles hearty.
On Saturday morning in any month, to find
The place with the smiling face, pause before
The looking glass, behind the buzzing LiteBeer sign,
At Smalltown’s Bigboat Pizza store.
February 28, 2009
Poetry