All-day Wayside

 

He walks in, takes a seat,

eats his pie.

 

He smiles but doesn’t speak

until his farewell thanks.

 

He looks like someone off TV,

but they can’t agree on who.

 

Did you see how quick he ate it?

She shakes her head, disbelieving.

 

Nothing to drink, just pie

and free tomato sauce.

 

*

 

Not yet half-way,

a family squares off.

 

Soggy chips, nachos

missing a couple of ingredients.

 

Forbidden phones, the kids

play with their food.

 

An unhappier couple sits

at the next table.

 

The father sighs; the mother

brightens, and tunes in.

 

*

 

They closed the café

half an hour early.

 

The traffic had been quiet a while,

and the sausage rolls had gone.

 

Finding the door locked, he turns

and pans the street.

 

It’s the service station, then, packet of chips

and a chocolate bar.

 

He parks himself at the picnic table,

but the view doesn’t satisfy him.

 

©Kerry Hines

 

 

Kerry Hines is a Wellington-based poet, writer and researcher. Her collection Young Country (poems with photographs by William Williams) was published by AUP in 2014.