My Clover Order Is Ready in 4 mins
After Léonie Adams

Egg and eggplant sandwich beats down the menu; the egg and eggplant sandwich
Of summer burns along the board
And thins the menu with appropriated air,
Till from the off-menu a regular
Orders an eggplant sandwich, no egg.
Still the $7.95 spills out my pocket
A large note in either hand.
And echos of the founder’s alma mater are emblazoned,
And hushed the brazen cheek of state colleges,
The hurry of accumulated debts,
And from the second self-service tap,
The CO2 dribbles into plastic.

The CO2 dribbles into plastic,
And gurgles, aloof sparkling thirst-quencher, clean won
Of light, between other customers thirsting:
Some hid, softly-turning to spy,
Apprehensive to hurtle tapwards.
Fresh triumphs in such courteous kinds,
Having other places to be, and spend,
And easy, countless Clover locations,
All over Cambridge MA, no doubt.
Like a crimson heart, well-spent in sighs,
The famous autumn walks to come,
The CO2 drops ever ever ever glistening.

Now our catnip tea mission piles deep,
And overarching lot, the egg and eggplant
Across the all-so-hurried is flung;
And here beneath the mission statement is cast
A reason to spend, to snack, to colour us bad,
While sweated neighbours hooch and swing
Beneath the glancing water tap,
And deepening like those tender French fries
Rosemary moves along just so, and baked
Musicians alongside, who caught it all
And emerald pierces order, and last
Our faint name is called and falls.

 

Russell Bennetts is the founder and editor of Berfrois. He is the co-founder of Queen Mob’s Teahouse. “My Clover Order Is Ready in 4 mins” was first published in the New England Review of Books.

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer,photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows bothin the USA and Europe and he has had 9 one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 230 on line and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Pollock-Krasner grants, the Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grant and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc. He currently teaches art to retired public school teachers at The United Federation of Teachers program in Brooklyn.