Formica
Sitting there at the counter,
her appearance is
just about as stunning
as the Formica counter
upon which she rests her elbows.
Everything is utilitarian about her
and yet
one can only imagine that
this wasn’t always the case.

Just how do you get from a life of glamour
to that of
Formica?

And as she huddles up
to the counter’s square edge,
I can see that there on her lap,
she covets a gold faux leather handbag
aglitter with
studded accents.
An out of place elegance
in an otherwise
cafeterian life.

Sitting there beneath a hum of florescent light,
the greenish cast of
all that gaseous illumination
renders everything about her
a garish monochrome
and yet,
the gold of that bag
perseveres.

It is a scintillating oasis
in an otherwise beige existence.
Without that handbag’s iridescence,
would she not blend into all that
subdued concrete cityscape which
pours out from this diner’s door?

Though homogenized against her will,
there upon lap she brandishes
the slightest hint of
exotic
transcendence.
All while the world insists
on serving
vanilla obliteration.

And there,
as she continues her
slow motion melt to obscurity,
it occurs to me that I might rise,
go to her side and tell her
how special she is.
That that beauty she carries with her
has not gone
unnoticed.

I think this.
Yes, I…
I truly think
this.

And… you know I would say
all these words
were it not for the fact that

I myself
am already at one
with my own table top of
pre-destined
Formica

obscurity.

©06 Jack Hubbell