I don’t have a recording of this one, so you’ll just have to read it as verse. It’s a story song, really, so in that sense a lot less like the more imagistic poems I have tended to put out there lately.

Shannon

Takes a lot of elbow grease to get the stains from the counter
Residue of hamburgers and quickie lunches
Shannon’s Diner charges a dollar for a hamburger
And chances are Shannon herself makes it
At fifty-four she flips her burgers and hates it

She started at seventeen working for Joe who’s dead
And her hair flopped loose and dark over her face
She’d wipe her skillet sweat from her forehead
Working late and saving tips through the years
A polkadot kerchief in her hair and onion-made tears

Once upon a time guys would settle at the end of the counter
Ask for coffee and wink at her with their hamburger
Would tug at her skirt and gaze at her eyes
Sigh over her apron and daydream her thighs
Was a long time ago

Shannon got the diner after Joe passed away, heart attack
Learned to punch a calculator and wear a nicer skirt
There was a grease fire, caught her arm and back
The scar tissue is like a blur, like the moment
We all know the story; every patron has been told it

They put the state route by the diner back in 82
She’s got a few young waitresses who get dates
One salesman with a wife at home always orders for two
But Shannon never takes her cue or sits down
She’s got her job and perpetual frown

She stays late to watch the night shift take over
They’re efficient and do fine like she’s not there any longer
She’s reduced to tweaking the stacks of napkins
Waiting for the accident to happen
Like it used to long ago

And today she eyed my little girl as she asked for her food
Couldn’t get her gaze off the small dress and ribbon
Cracked a few grins in her direction, acted sort of rude
My little girl flinched away, scared
Of Shannon’s scars, the wrinkles and white hair

Shannon’s Diner has a high price for a smalltime meal
Accidents are the best it offers
It never pays there to examine just how you feel
Ask Shannon, I get the feeling she knows
Living her life in the neon diner glow

There’s a little jar she keeps in the office
Got fifty four hundred, a will, and some wishes
She’s reduced to tweaking the stacks of napkins
Waiting for the accident to happen
Where are all her tips now