Breakfast at the Marion Motley All-Star Cafe
After the swift sadness of a good book finished
Or a birdie on the eighteenth hole
Dirk digs into the formalities
Of stiffening his heart against a century
Of yesterdays. His nerves prefer the reality
Of cold afternoons alone in the garage
With a fender primed but not painted.
The differences between the large insanities
And the smaller ones swim along the row
Of little labelled jars of nails and screws.
One golden hour of filing blades, patching tin
And crimping lead shot onto twenty pound test
Lets Dirk face a lack of children and allows him
To take up a task suited to his strength.