Flash Market


Down at FM 980 and Larkspur
Fats Hendricks
runs a small gas station
that sits just north of the tracks.

He got a small café there.
It ain’t much, just a few
benches, tables,
ones even got a table cloth on it,
and a sneeze guard
in front of the food.
But, the food’s always hot
and there’s always a
fresh pot of coffee on.

Fats, he’s a good man,
wife left him for Biloxi,
took the cat and the dog,
and left him with the trailer
and truck
that he don’t drive none too
often ’cause gas is so
damned expensive.

He got these fried pies
he makes on the weekends,
somethin’ special,
and sometimes,
me and my wife, after church,
we like to go in and sit down at
that table that has the tablecloth,
and order these pies
and two cups of coffee.

Fats’ll smile, ask us how the
sermon was,
because we got a new pastor,
Pastor Dean, son of a preacher,
and he’ll talk to us about marriage,
his kids,
the reason he ain’t been in town lately.
He’ll ask us about the pies,
if our coffee’s hot enough,
if we finished our shed.

And it hurts to leave,
because sometimes I think that
we’re the only
two sets of ears that
listen back.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Creativity, and the Pursuit of Happiness

One Cup at a Time

Aren't We All, Cont'd