If it isn’t a special place there’s no special place.
Those boys, those boys come in and they talk.
There’s doughnuts and rolls all laid out on the counter
and coffee, those glass pots of coffee on the warmer
And lines of white glass cups.
And when those boys come in
their caps are heroic with words
Like JOHN DEERE, DEKALB CORN,
FUNK’S G HYBRIDS, NORTHRUP KING
and their caps are silent
as they talk and take the rolls
and coffee at their ease
at the tables in the back
Meanwhile, Elsie looks; she looks
through her green prescription
glasses, as she sits and listens
to the boys; and there’s a tray,
big, round, glass, full
of dollar bills and piles of change
where the customers can pay
all by themselves before they leave
and not make Elsie move. The door
opens again and again.
Those boys. How they do come in.