The kind of joint where waitresses call you Darlin’

and Sweetie, take smoke breaks with regulars,

red leather stools punctuate Formica counters,

plump as trumpeter cheeks, coffee pours perpetual.

Is that Walter Gretzky at the end of the bench? 

He scissors over the boards, long strides

across waxed tiles, circling with a puck

behind breakfast tables, unexpectedly turning 

as if slipping a hip-check. Stools swivel,

and he begins to sing, taking a girl by her hands 

as if warming them. Here in this roadside diner, 

crooning a love song, as if happiness were a hockey 

sweater, holding her with his own gentle hands 

that tied so many early morning skates.  

---

Gerald Arthur (Art) Moore is an adventurer, a part-time university lecturer, a high school teacher, and a rugby coach living in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. NON-Publishing released his first book of poetry Shatter the Glass, Shards of Flame in 2018. He received the PubHouse Books Chapbook prize in 2019 for Trigger Fingers. His work has appeared in Queen’s Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Exile Quarterly, Existere, Vallum, The Antigonish Review, The Nashwaak Review, The Dalhousie Review, Qwerty, Off the Coast, The Pennysylvania Review, Boston Poetry Magazine, Quills, The Sandy River Review, The River, Orca, and The Military Review. Moore has led six humanitarian work projects to Haiti since the devastating earthquake there in 2010. His employment history includes army officer and vintner. His newest book is titled Flak Jacket 2024. His forthcoming book is Rat Romeo 2026.