DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Makes Faces at a Baby in an Olive Garden

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Makes Faces at a Baby in an Olive Garden

Meals at The Olive Garden,

Like all other workaday tragedies,

Aren’t planned; they’re the epilogue

Of a series of tiny, innocuous mistakes.

The conference was out of town.  He didn’t

Know anyone.  Wasn’t about to grab hot wings

With the Tri-State sales team at Hooters.  Only real choice.

Minestrone soup comes cold and tastes like the East River,

Beyond the meaning of the word “salty”, with some half-hearted

Rubbery shapes – could be celery, could be parts of an old tire.

But he’s starving, so he smiles, faintly, sips quietly.  Cuts the acrid taste

With forkfuls of his dry salad and a snatch of breadstick.

Just then,

From the table to his right,

A baby begins to sob.

Not a tantrum, or a cry of mischief,

But something more portent.  Fear, an awareness

Of death?   A grip of resolute sadness?

He nods.  Makes sense.  It’s the Olive Garden.

We’re all feeling that way.

But the baby won’t cease.  His family’s lost

In their chatter, cooing over their glossy dishes with too much cream,

Baby’s cry is lost but for this man.

So he rises to action. Cleans his soup spoon.

Wets it lightly with his tongue,

And places it, gingerly,

Atop his nose, balancing it there.

Then opening his mouth wide like a bass.

The baby turns, surprised, cries softer.

The man continues.  Drops the cutlery,

Plumps his cheeks until they’re wide

And flush as balloons.   Baby falls silent.

For his finish, the man seizes two breadsticks,

Crams them artfully into both sides of his mouth,

And claps his hands, an eager walrus.

Baby howls and giggles with delight.

And sometimes, that’s enough.  Sometimes that small,

Connective gift for a stranger – that’s the rivulet of mercy,

To forget, for a second,

That you’re a man alone in an Olive Garden

On a Tuesday afternoon

Not so much eating food as enduring it.