bored with grown-up conversation
waiting for food at Zorbaz
and lacking money
for the claw machine
a nine-year-old explores
coins spotted through gaps
in the deck timbers
call for immediate extraction
requiring a suitable stick
grandpa is dispatched to find
while mom rifles her purse
for chewing gum
to put on the end of it
cold pizza is beside the point later
as cupped hands and a broad grin
tell the real story
and her luck holds
when mom lets her spend it all
in the claw machine
Tim Maloney
Hopewell Junction, NY