An old postcard from Waddle’s Coffee Shop in Portland, Oregon, from an article by Chris Alm.
She said
My treat of choice used to be
An apple and a cigarette
And I laughed and said
Oh that’s so
Newyorkcityhighfashionanorexicmodel
Of you
And we bought a pint of
Apple pie ice cream
And parked in the lot by the beach
Windows rolled down
And ate with our mouths gaping
Watching the waves roll turbulently
Voyeurs
Like tourists ogling at a desert monument or human faces carved into a mountain range.
Some Americana wet dream this is,
Sugar cream dripping down our chins
While heavenly fog lifts from the horizon—
A muddled golden hour.
And in our sheltered moment,
This drive-in chimera,
This pearly bubble delicately poised for the popping,
We remarked at how absurd it all is, really,
That we build ourselves steel prisons
From the prisms of perspective we’ve constructed.
Indulgence & restriction
Is a slingshot game,
But at least we can laugh about it now.
Anyhow, I suppose confinement is what we needed
In order to understand
What it truly means to be free—
Ah yes, you say,
The good ol’ American Dream.