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Ode to a Once Grand Café (Cigar Mike’s)

Kenneth DiMaggio

Linoleum counter and whose chrome
stools with the red leather caps
were cracked like an old boxer’s glove
which could have once tied around
the fist of the meat-mangler Mike
whose name was always preceded by
“cigar” from the permanent
soggy tobacco stub clenched in
his pit-bull faced pug that still did not
stop 12-year old punks like me
from busting his chops

See: this was a cop hang out
and because my old man was one
I could eat whatever meat Cigar Mike
mangled and put it on his tab
—a note book that also note-tated
sports bets and while this ex-pugilist
educated me with the facts of crime
I educated him on how to turn a classroom
upside down and when the cops entered
including my Dad they tried to teach
everybody about how the brass
got no balls and how some of the folks
they arrested were more honest than
the politicians they served

Oh     this was a grand café
even if it never had a name
and was about the size & looks
of a chicken coop

Cigar Mike’s
was where I learned
that the people you elect
are the biggest crooks
while the criminals
got their jobs to do
just like the cops

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