The Milkshake Would Not Be Dead

January 20, 2012 By Tim Ruane 2 Comments

I would sail, Juliet—

Like Ishmael, I suppose—

A star-lit Atlantic Ocean

To sip at a cherry milkshake

Across a formica table from you.

(I guess this means the dead word love.)

Bob and Edith’s,

The diner where I used to order

Omelets and white toast

And margarine and coffee,

Drunk,

At 3 and 4 in the morning,

Is on Columbia Pike,

Just a lazy hill or two from here.

We could clink our water glasses

And play Ry Cooder on the juke box,

While watching through the big windows

Metal cars rolling by with their purpose.

(I think that the cars’ lights would mean

The dead word love, too.)

The check for 4.99 would never arrive,

For we would sit, as if immortal,

Surrounded by the sacred air of the night,

Laughing about the job I do not have

Or economics.

Filed Under: Tim Ruane, Uncategorized Tagged With: art, dance, diners, economics, milkhsakes, photography, poetry, Sex and Relationships, women

About Tim Ruane

Tim Ruane is an artist and writer. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he studied English and art, and has worked as a chief copy editor in the editorial department of The Washington Post, where he has also worked as a freelance photographer. He has written hundreds of poems, two novels a number of short stories. His photographs have been published by The Washington Post, Simon & Schuster and The Good Men Project. He has shown his photographs at Potomac MD Public Library and is scheduled to be published in ShareArt LA, Circumfleks Magazine and Splinter Literary Journal. He will have an exhibition of his photographs in September at the offices of Prudential FedRealty in Washington D.C. Mr. Ruane lives and works in Garrett Park MD, just outside Washington D.C. USA.