Dark Nostaliga

There’s a little cafe

a breakfast joint really

in a tiny town

on a small rock

off the New England coast.

Black Eyed Susan’s

always a wait

spilling onto cobblestone streets

lined with faded Rovers,

ketchup and jam on every table,

brusque servers refilling

steaming coffee into three-sips-thick mugs,

buttermilk pancakes pulled from a whopping griddle

with pats of foiled butter and real maple syrup,

and sullen silences heard above the din

of happy families;

the nostalgia of home

as thick and slippery and gray

as fog

shrouding the island.