Unhappy Teriyaki

Perhaps I shouldn't have eaten at
the "Unhappy Teriyaki." For the sauce
was morose, the service glum. Clientele:
numb. It was as if we all were extras

in a black-and-white film, waiting
for the star to come in out of the
fake rain playing a humorless,
wandering anti-hero. Short handsome

zero. Even if it wasn't as if that,
I tell you only the rice looked upbeat.
Songs of lamentation emerged
from the kitchen. A percussion-section

warms up in my orchestra pit.


hans ostrom 2015