SITTING AT THE COUNTER

by Lee Stern


 

All I know is that I was sitting at the counter.

I was waiting to find out if everybody was going to be saying the word maybe.

I wasn’t going to be getting any traction out of it.

But I wanted to report the results, as they occurred,

to a confederation of various individuals.

As it turned out, only three people of German origin said the word maybe.

The other two were Hungarians.

And they were too busy with their pie to say

really much of anything that might have captured my interest.

And I don’t like admitting this.

But that’s the way it was.

Three people of German origin said the word maybe.

And the Hungarians countered with dignity

and demanded that I give them my fork.




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