I took my daughter and her boyfriend to dinner
at a place called Joe’s Crab Shack.
Strategically installed near the entrance
to the town’s first shopping mall, Joe’s
presented thousands of winking lights
presented thousands of winking lights
that glanced off reproduced tin signs
promoting products unavailable
since the ’50s, taped music of the Beatles
and the Bee Gees, fancifully named
seafood dishes, though we were far from the sea.
Teenaged waitresses and busboys
broke spontaneously into disco dances
when called upon by their contracts
to celebrate life. Inside this giant pinball
machine, I forgot what I had ordered
before I finished consuming it.
It was a family restaurant, calibrated
perfectly to our two generations:
my daughter’s, for which the past
consists of strip-mined artifacts,
and mine, whose contribution
has been to further refine
the art of putting everything
up for sale.
up for sale.
We were far from the sea.
