Saturday, June 13, 2009

Kraatz

The last time I was here there were dozens
of stray cats everywhere: lolling on the porch,
stretched in the warm dirt, peering down
from the roof, and they all had that related-
and-underfed-look, siblings & cousins & aunts
& second cousins etc., and all of a single season.
Tonight I saw just one cat, a black-and-white
nursing female, long and lank, untrustful.
And although the Bait Shop was open, we were there
for the Cafe, our second night of grilled drum,
and quite possibly the worst martini I've ever had.
(P. warned me. Did I listen? No.) But the drum
more than made up for it. And so did the onion rings.
It was too windy to eat on the deck, but we were
inside beside the windows overlooking the choppy
bay waters, and the fish were leaping and silvery
beyond the piers. Our waitress kept bringing items
in threes instead of fours: three waters, three
plates. We were four. One two three four.
Maybe one of us was invisible.

8 comments:

  1. This is a very evocative piece of writing, & the photo is completely magical. & yes, I definitely see the difference between your photo on the masthead & K.'s photo of the same store!

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  2. This photo looks like a movie set! I love the lighting and as usual your description is marvelous.

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  3. That made me smile. I was invisible once, in a creperie in Quebec City. The server walked off without taking my order, then - after we called him back - brought everybody's order but mine. By the time I finally got my crepe, everybody else had finished eating. I never did figure out what I had done to offend him.

    What's with the martinis? Were they some weird martini-esque drink, or just too much vermouth?

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  4. John, yikes, hope I wasn't too harsh in reprimanding you!! (All in fun.)

    Ima, this definitely is an iconic location.

    Sandra, sorry to hear that! Our waitress was just a bit ditzy. Needed some training. She brought our peach cobbler to the table still wrapped in plastic. Oops! And the martini...well..let's just say that they didn't have a bartender.
    It was in an old-fashioned glass, no vermouth, two emaciated olives, and it was warm.

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  5. In an old-fashioned glass? Warm? Are you sure it was a martini?! Your photo is great--can't believe a place like this really exists.

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  6. Felt sitting there right by you - present but indeed invisible.

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  7. I love the way you write in "proems" (as my friend Brian says). It's an artful way of creating an image rather than simply reporting facts. Looking forward to more...

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  8. Linsey, thanks for stopping by.

    My blog format won't let me write in paragraph form, so I manually break the lines so I won't end up with single word on a line. It works out well with my nature as a poet, anyway!

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