The three of us
Too early to be nighthawks
Long empty counter
But prepared for many
yet to come
One 'special A plate,' one hamburg, one can't rember
Rice on a plate not a bowl
Miso comes later
"the kid is so cute"
the lady says
I reply "he's not cute he's cool"
(cos everyone says cute and he hates it)
She says
"does he need a fork?
He says (from behind the counter)
"nah, kid is good at the chopsticks"
She brings anyway
Kid devours meat
Larger than should be possible
Impressed they give him a Yakult
because "he is so cute"
"no" I remind "he's so cool or you can tell him he's remarkably handsome"
Me, always try to be funny in Japanese
Of course they ask me what country?
I say "Okayama"
they think I don't understand the question
Wife gracefully answers
They invite us to come back
We say we will
- mostly because the large cans
of "for pro use only"
Ketchup
Or the Tanuki for good luck
or the bank calendar
with a painting I like
Interjection
{three young athletic fellows come in
broad shouldered strong but tidy
they take cute pictures of each other eating}
"thank you for the meal" we say
¥500 change
From ¥2000
the bells ringies
We step into
The laneway night
The three of us
Too early to be nighthawks
Nevertheless the counter was long
The food functional
And somewhere Edward Hopper looks on, snickering because time waits
For no one
Including us downtown
past eight
addendum in reply to Byzantium Bill saying: “The Romance of the Family Diner. A scene from the regular life.”
funny how it worked out…
A bunch of household chores and then swung by so I could get some medical treatment, and since we are downtown, Ryoko, who has this superpower of finding random cheap and cheerful but entirely serviceable and definitely quirky restaurants, delivered is here, the three of us holding hands through the chilly back streets.
Then on the way back to Agnes, our van, found a backstreet guitar shop inexplicably open at 8 PM come out one gent in there, all kinds of interesting instruments and after conversation we left with two LPs with significant familial backstory… I'll save that for another time
