Sundae Clown

Folded-over lace socks
on little girls
with legs that dangle
over chair-edges
like a ragdoll's.
And the wide white room
is elegant to
small sparkly eyes,
while adults
attend to business lunches
on the rainy afternoon.
Their brown suits
stiff and crinkles
like their half-eaten
salads.
Water glasses sweat
under the pressure.

There are even tablecloths
and the waitstaff where aprons,
this is the fanciest place
for little girls
with bright frocks
in all of Lima, Ohio.
Top floor of the Lazarus
building at the mall.
A view
down onto the seagulls
in the parking lot,
pot-holed
and glistening
with split oil.

The clinking of cheap flatware
is magical
like song,
and somewhere
in her mind they are dancing,
these pitchers and
forks
like Beauty and the Beast.

And the smiling waitress
coos over the little girl
and brings out a 
sundae smiling like a clown.
It's a speciality.
Fit for a princess.

The suits with their briefcases
don't know they are
in the presence
of royalty.