Issue 25 Preview: Burning Down the Waffle House, by Danny Caine

Photo by Simon Daoudi on Unsplash

Note: This poem is from our latest print issue, number 25, which you can and should order right here.

The person at Waffle House

drops my card and starts crying.

She’s here alone until 2. It’s 2.

Kind of hard to avoid the fact

that I am part of the problem.

With that in mind, how much

of a tip is a good tip, and where

is the line between a good tip

and a messiah complex?

Trying to quickly stop crying,

she asks me, do you ever just

get so tired? If she wants to

burn down the Waffle House,

I’ll go get some kerosene.

There are other sandwiches.

I offer her Advil. I don’t know

what else to do. She declines.

Anyway, she says, shaking

her head. She’ll be able to sit

once the restaurant is empty,

meaning, of course, when I leave.

Danny Caine is the author of the poetry collections Continental Breakfast, El Dorado Freddy’s, Flavortown, and Picture Window, as well as the books How to Protect Bookstores and Why and How to Resist Amazon and Why. His poetry has appeared in The Slowdown, LitHub, DIAGRAM, HAD, and Little Engines. He lives in Cleveland.