Hopper's All Night Diner

She found the perfectly imperfect man
while eating a tuna sandwich on pumpernickel
at Beckman's Diner on Jasmine Street.
With make-up, she resembled a Myrna Loy
when Hollywood was the best myth
to matinee a girl's long dry afternoons.

Without make-up, Myrna looked ghostly
in ripped jeans and a Tee shirt
that read Ziggy Lives!
The man with five day stubble
was still squinting from watching
too many RKO reruns in stiff socks
in an apartment the size of a caboose.
The sirens never distracted him.

He looked into the mirror behind the counter
and said "Have we met before?"
Myrna spoke into the mirror as well.
She said, "You dreamt me up."
She then left, circled around the block
that was littered by club goers
refused entry. They were scattered
in twos and threes. Some loped in solo orbits.
None were ugly. None, she surmised,
were bad dancers. Just too opaque for the night.

She returned to the diner, peered through the glass.
The man was still sitting at the counter,
his fingers tapping the rim
of what she guessed
was a half-empty coffee cup.
She remembered him from somewhere.
The city was such a recurring carnival
of faces. And subway tunnels. There were
so many tunnels where people stood
shoulder to shoulder without speaking.

She felt cold and she wanted
to keep walking. She was sure she had
seen him or part of him somewhere.
Perhaps in the tunnel.