I asked the waiter for a bowl
of potato chips
in a quiet diner on a summer island
while the craw of winter
gripped outside, the stark
daguerreotype of leafless trees
caged behind the mullions
birds sputtered against
while inside I took
small pleasure watching the flare
of steam emit from the spout
of a shiny percolator,
and fill the room
and make the few patrons here
feel warmer, buffeted
from some far-off storm, and we
glanced at each other
and nodded as if it was understood
we were safe
under the aroma of toast and butter
and Maxwell House in the red canister
my mother used to make
turning up here
along with the silver AM radio behind
the counter which I asked
the waiter to turn on,
and the radio announcer
as far away as South Bend, Indiana
came on with “Satisfaction”
by the Stones, his arch enthusiasm
cracked by the crisp bite
into the trough of the crescent,
loud, yes—delicious, certainly—
but cut by the melancholy
which overcame me
like salty fog drifting in off the surf
as my older sister with chipped
painted nails and a stolen
plastic ring offered me a large potato
chip I could barely put
in my five-year-old mouth
so she broke it in two, and the pact
was set: that we were two halves
of one potato chip
which we held between
our teeth in sync
while we squinted at horizons
dashed with black ships
ready to crash more
breaches, ready to go to war,
to drift from such placid stations
and vanish with our vacations.
What world was this our parents
railed about going to hell
in a handbasket,
smacking newspapers in their laps
while we proceeded to crunch
the potato and the salt
softening in our mouths under
our humming in unison?
We tuned them out
with our transistor radios, blithe
to the sand grating our bathing trunks,
and mother shouting let’s go
into the wind picking up
and then I looked down into the bowl,
almost empty,
at the last flakes of chips
and I wet my finger to press and
pick up each one of them
with the voracity of a wizened adult
hungry for the lost
fragments of the child, sidling in
striations of sand
with a soggy chip in hand
looking for mother, father, sister.
Native of Boston, MA., Stelios Mormoris is CEO of Scent Beauty, Inc. Citizen of Greece and the U.S., Stelios was born in New York, and lived most of his adult life in Paris.
Stelios is also a contemporary artist, specializing in abstract oil painting. He studied in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University as a student of William Meredith and Maxine Kumin. He received a B.A. in Architecture from Princeton University, and an M.B.A. from INSEAD [Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires] in Fontainebleau, France.
He has been published in Crosswinds Poetry Journal, The Fourth River, Gargoyle Magazine, The Good Life Review, High Shelf Press, Humana Obscura, Midwest Poetry Review, Press, South Road, Spillway, Sugar House Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Verse, Whelks Walk Review and other journals.
Stelios’ debut book of poetry titled The Oculus is forthcoming from Tupelo Press in September 2022.
Stelios has held positions on the Boards of the French Cultural Center of Boston, Historic New England, the Fragrance Foundation, and ACT UP.
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