Full Stop Cafe

[Edward Rochester Esq.]

Full Stop Café
by Edward Rochester Esq.

Beyond lies the desert
and it is wise to stop, though the coffee
is bitter, the eggs float in grease and bits of shell
but what opens up after the Full Stop
is cactus country, plump rabbits,
scorpions and cold nights after the boil.

It’s risky, you dread the flat tire,
fear the hombres you’ve come to know,
though spaghetti westerns were more pasta
than stick em up, with apologies to Eastwood.

You gas up, thanks to the eggs
and slip it into drive, past that sign of ‘now leaving’
and wonder how that city girl O'Keeffe
found adobe’s and rattlers, required living.

L.A circled on the map, straight ahead
to the walk of stars, under the stars of midnight,
and it appears, that skyline of easy living; the tires have held,
though now they sit on a freeway, where freedom
chokes on diesel and four lanes going nowhere.

The Hollywood sign appears,
handsome Mr. Dean had it going on right up there,
Ms. Wood sparkled years before she drowned—
Dean? well he went too fast breaking that movie star face
and I think I saw Brando but it turned out
to be a large Donut atop a take out joint

It took longer to get down Wilshire
than navigate the desert ride and I was beginning
to understand O'Keeffe, making a u-turn
and that sign saying ‘now leaving’.