Wednesday, January 6, 2016

SITTING AT THE COUNTER


with a cupacoffee
and a cigarette
was a magnificent thing:
watching wisps
of smoke blue
in the afternoon light
drifting up into your eyes
not wanting to go home
or go to school
or go to a job;
wondering how to tell
a woman
you don't love her
or love her too much;
thinking and thinking
and thinking how
to get it right,
how to get it out,
practicing the words
turning them over
twisting them in your mouth
around your tongue
seeing their expression
expressed in the other,
backing up, rehearsing
the rehearsal,
ordering another cup,
shaking loose another
cigarette, lighting a match,
blowing on your hand,
finding a landing place
and drifting drifting drifting
on a reed, a thin reed,
trying to find a self
that felt right,
knowing eventually
a price will be paid,
for not
doing your homework,
not using protection,
not telling the truth,
you stumble through
the inconvenient lies
born of convenience,

and then she's there
and you'll retreat
into a booth
where you'll share
another cupacoffee
and another cigarette
and you'll tell each other
confidences and secrets
and offer your hand
to hold her hand
and nurse each other
on an exquisite
afternoon into
early evening.

All this
for a half a buck
and a tip.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

No comments:

Post a Comment