Prose Poem on “Club Plum”

I am proud to say that my first-ever published prose poem appears on Club Plum today in Volume One, Issue 3.

As I remember, I wrote the piece thinking about workers in the service industry. The focus on them had been in the news a lot at the time due to their challenges–and how much everyone was relying on them–during the pandemic. It started as a pretty traditional piece, but it lent itself to the prose form pretty nicely.

Club Plum editor Thea Swanson made some very insightful suggestions that strengthened the poem quite a bit. In my old age, I maybe have finally learned to listen to good advice. Maybe.

Everything in the poem is true, at least as I remember it, though much of it isn’t true any more. The Motor Lodge is gone, demolished in favor of a strip mall years ago, and the Burger King we worked at has been renovated a few times, I think.

I think everyone should work at a fast food restaurant a little while in their lives. It teaches you to treat everyone well, even if you’re stubborn and don’t act on that lesson until many years later.