Waitresses and Pilgrims
Updated: Nov 6
It’s 1972 and Leonard Cohen
hesitates to ask a waitress
her name at a late-night
café on Eighth Avenue
and Van Morrison is singing
about how my waitress
my waitress my waitress
said it was coming down.
Tom Waits is noticing
how the cash register rings
and how the waitress sings
eggs and sausage
Joni Mitchell’s coyote
picks up her scent
on his fingers
while he’s watching
the waitress’s legs.
And I just found
a note I scrawled
on the inside cover
of Myths to Live By
by Joseph Campbell
freshly bought in 1972
at a Greyhound bus stop,
a note about a tawny moth
trapped between the window
and a napkin dispenser
as the lead pipe morning falls
and the waitress calls
eggs and sausage
and a side of toast.
Leonard was dreaming
the waitress was an angel
manifesting a body
condensed from air
who would make him a saint
or at least a cherubinic pilgrim
by wrapping him
in the sound of closing wings
during fabulous lovemaking.
I fantasized about coffee
not made from dishwater
as I freed the moth
from cupped hands
while cradling Styrofoam
with a leaky lid
and got back on the bus.
There ain’t no cure for sludge.
— Earl Fowler
And if one of those eggs had contained an embryonic Dixie Chick, the waitress would have looked out the window as your bus pulled out of town. And wiping away a tear from her eyes, she would have glanced at the liberated moth as she sang, "Goodbye, Earl!"
On a bus with Cohen and Mitchell and Waits and Morrison and you would be a magical ride. As long as no one let Van the Man drive.
Beautiful images.
The friendly waitress at a former favourite greasy spoon that served $3 bacon and eggs would always ask, “Would you like a good coffee wth that?” alluding to tea-coloured dishwater in the Pyrex warmer. Finally I said I would. “But, where can I get one?” She was less friendly after that.