Anywhere Else

Every evening
the bleary-eyed waitress
threw glances at the clock,
restless to go home
so she could be kept awake all night
by her ungrateful kids.
And the man in the corner
with the tabloid
always ignoring his fat wife
who hadn’t stopped talking
for fifteen years
but still dreamed
of some place hot.
Everyone wanted
to be anywhere else,
but I think it beat
microwave meals
and a dripping tap,
so most days I sat quietly
and watched the world turn
from that grimy rest-stop
on the road out of town.

© 2016, Gavin Zanker.

Photo by Rene Schwietzke licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.