Breakfast at McDonald’s needs no location to describe it. Even the restrooms require no extra thought. It’s that place you go to when your plate is already full and you want no surprises.

In this segment of my new poem, The Breakfast Chronicles, I look at what is a tradition for the many who can’t bear to deal with forty different versions of coffee at 6:00 am, and want something to chew on besides the traffic reports.

Glenn K. Currie

 

Breakfast at McDonalds

 

A road worker in a yellow reflective vest

Feeds her cigarette into a long-necked fatboy,

And rushes to a waiting pick-up truck.

The drive-through creeps along,

As sleepy customers mumble orders by the numbers,

And any size coffee for a buck.

An old man in a dirty, Tequila Sunrise t-shirt,

Exits a side door and moves quickly to the fatboy.

He expertly removes the long-neck top,

And retrieves the still smoking cigarette, and two other butts.

A disembodied voice suddenly offers to help me.

I choose a number three meal and a Newman’s Own large, black.

Fully equipped for the road ahead,

I join my fellow commuters for breakfast.