The Log Cabin Café Sundance, WY

The Log Cabin Café

Sundance, WY

The elk head is watching me

finish off my open-faced

hot beef sandwich,

the special today

brown gravy smothers

the meat

two slices of white bread

elbow the potatoes

the peas

from underneath

over my head

an unframed oil painting

I would title

Man Shooting Geese

is ashamed of its

signature:

a blue scribble smudged

before the artist,

(smudge) l-e (smudge) s-s-o-n,

ever got a chance

to be acknowledged

a lesson certainly

for me as I finish off

my pie and coffee

and wonder at the single goose

who took the shot

only moments before

the artist's eye suspended him

crookedly between the clouds

and the lake

forever

the elk is preparing

to bugle taps

it's in his glassy stare

the ripples of his

stiff neck

his hard, plastic tongue

as she gives me the check

and a smile

the waitress is wondering

where I'm from

why I'm here

what I've been writing

I imagine them

thinking I'm a food critic

from the city,

looking for the article in the

Sunday Journal,

recalling the extra portions

they served the stranger

the fresh coffee

the largest slice of pie

oh, the plans for expansion

the tourists flocking in

just to have that

hot, smothered beef sandwich

and give wings to the town hung

precariously between

flight and oblivion

Thanks—it was delicious

I tell her, signing my check

as legibly as possible

and including a tip of gratitude

to the Café de la Mort en Suspens