Don Winter was a night manager at Burger Chef in Niles, Michigan. His store has since been torn down and replaced by a Rite-Way Drug. The store may be gone, but Winter continues to draw inspiration for his poetry from those years behind the counter. His writing received acceptances from nearly 400 journals, including New York Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review and 5 AM. Today, Winter is an Assistant Editor of Alaska Quarterly Review and co-editor of Fight These Bastards.
Mr. Winter has kindly granted me permission to share some of his poetry here at The Reliquary. He says that while the third poem, Raw, may not be "clearly B.C. inspired," it in fact takes place in a Burger Chef parking lot.
| Cleaning Up At The Hamtramck Burger Chef |
|
Nights at this place
boss lines spray bottles up
across the counter. He says the red’s
for shelves, the blue’s for toilets,
and the white’s only for
stainless steel. His eyebrows frown, but when
that bastard disappears into his office
I spray what I want
onto what I want.
Some nights his wife lifts
her ass onto the counter. She points
out turnover skins I missed.
Looks like she’s been slept in
for years. Those nights I time
his trip to the bank to chase
her with the white bottle.
And I catch her and squeeze
the little Chef faces stitched
over her breasts. Some nights,
that is. But most nights the boss
looks right through me. His wife mechanically
cleans the salad bar, and yells
at the bits of mustard and dressing.
As if they are to blame
for all this. Most nights I turn up
the radio and sing my own words.
Something about being in this business to stay
alive. Something like that. |
The Grill Cook’s Dream
Since she came to Burger Chef
Vera is all he thinks about
She calls back
“Two double cheese, hold the onions”
and he slides down
that voice onto a sofa
where they sit frenching, blowing
in each other’s ears.
She makes change
and he makes it under
her sweater, her nipples lilac
in the space heater’s flames.
“You fucked up, or what?” boss yells
one night when he’s already boosted
the radio in his head
to “10,” Vera’s throat wild with words:
“yeah baby, oh baby, yeah,”
her butt wriggling,
her skinny legs jittering
like electric rubber bands.
“I’m fine,” he swears,
sweeping buns into a dustpan
and secretly believing
he and Vera have the whole night ahead
Raw
Playing hooky again,
we carry eggs over french fries
& broken glass frozen on the pavement.
We count three & fire:
one falls short,
three smack the fat chef’s face
on the roof.
Back in the truck
Mark turns doughnuts, I hang out
the window, hit a guy
wearing a football uniform,
splatter the handicap sign.
We feel tough
as older brothers
learning to say fuck you to authority.
The manager pounds out
after us, punching air
& screaming, but he snaps back
when my egg hits his chest.
Mark fishtails the street.
“One fuck of an arm,
fuck of an arm,”
he spits, turns up the unhinged
music. Pretty soon, someone will kick
our asses for doing shit like this.
I stick my head out
the window again, raw night
air rushing into
my eyes and mouth.
Earlier this year, Winter published his first collection of poetry entitled Things About to Disappear. It includes the poem Dressing Burgers at Wanda's Grill...yet another poem inspired by his nights working for The Chef. To order your copy of Things About to Disappear send U.S.$4.00 to MuscleHead Press Chapbooks, Division of Bone World Publishing, 3700 Country Route 24, Russell, New York 13684. Proceeds from Things About to Disappear will be used to support Winter's son, Dylan.
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