MISS BRUNSWICK DINER – The best worst food you’ll ever eat! (1995)

16″ W x 8″H x 10″D
Tunnel book
Paper, gouache, wooden stools (Alan Bradstreet, ME)

COLLECTIONS:
Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine

Slide across black naugahyde booths
broken, white patches of pinto pony skin.
Take a paper napkin a the red formica table
inset with rhinestones fallen
from high wire acts.

Order turkey and dressing
misspelled in chalk on the wall.
Have meat loaf and REAL mash potatoes,
beef stew with thousand year old peas
and a bit of biscuit
like the Fat Lady floating belly-up
in the center ring.
Look around:
Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes sit in bacon fat
on shelves once sky blue.
Yellow order checks beckon to the chef
in fried breezes like banners
hanging over the fiery hoop.
They say the chef keeps all the pans in the air
back there in the kitchen
and up front, Rosie prides herself
on balancing six Specials at once.
Each a daring act.
Put your quarter in the jukebox.
Play a two-step while you dine.
Chase the clowns and tame the lions
till the place closes.
Early now, at nine.
—Alice Simpson