The diner is a throwback;

step in the door

and you are in

another world.  the woman

behind the counter, starched

and pinkish gray, bent

over the donuts, an up-do

impossibly high, sprayed into place;

tiny veins of lipstick snake

from her blue red mouth.

Every day brings someone else

middle-aged behind the bar,

looking  grim.  You imagine a man

in a suit at the end of the counter, a girl

in a scarlet dress, her cigarette drawing

pictures in the air; you feel trapped

in an Edward Hopper painting,

all alone.