{"id":2367,"date":"2026-08-08T14:23:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T14:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2026-08-10T15:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T15:23:12","slug":"diner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2367","title":{"rendered":"Diner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
As we weigh the benefits 
between pancakes and matzo ball soup
conversations flow and flutter 
all around us, peak gossip:

\u201cSo then I got the EKG\u201d
a woman with a teased and frosted bob says, 
holding court over her booth.
Her companions nod, impressed.


In the middle of the dinner, 
a trio of older men:
\u201cSo there I was, he shot the guy in the hallway.\u201d
The two listeners shrug their shoulders in unison
a universal \"what else would you do?\" reaction.


I settle on the crepe-like pancakes
while I'm left wondering 
what type of gun fight transpired.

Same guy, the witness to, or perpetrator of a crime,
five minutes later:
\u201cFor some reason I lose ten years\u2014\"
[unheard]
\"\u2014prision.\"

His table mate, cross-country skiing to a new topic:
\u201cI\u2019m gonna be eighty in December\u201d
The third man:
\u201cEighty!\u201d

Second man:
\u201cI read that if you hit eighty, 
your life expectancy expands\u201d

First man:
\u201cI heard that\u201d

Third man:
\u201cMax, you\u2019re not gonna make it\u201d
Max: \u201cYou said it\u201d

I cut into my blueberry tall stack
while I eavesdrop on 
the woman across the way: 

\u201cSo she was fixing the cage for it, 
and it flew away, and she was sad.
Said it was like her baby; 
kept her happy. And now, gone\u201d

Gone, girl, and so are we\u2014
after we pay the bill with twenties,
grab a dollar-fifty homemade doughnut 
off the counter display
tinkle the doorbell
exit into the August heat
while the hot tea spills and swirls inside.

<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cDiner,\u201d fragments of conversation intercepted over pancakes at a roadway diner, written Saturday, August 08, 2026 poem 220 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: “Three Blokes,”  by Diana Ludwick \u00a9 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2126,811,2130,311,200,887,1572,2,2129,776],"tags":[2184,2290,2294,2292,2296,1838,2295,2293,693,2289,2291,705,134],"class_list":["post-2367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-culinary","category-current-events","category-eating-and-drinking","category-generational","category-humor","category-loosely-hinged","category-of-place","category-poems","category-recipes-for-life","category-short-form-musings","tag-august","tag-diner","tag-doughnut","tag-ekg","tag-gossip","tag-high-summer","tag-hot-tea","tag-matzo-ball-soup","tag-men","tag-old-men","tag-prison","tag-saturday","tag-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2367"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2375,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions\/2375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}