Barista (Working Title)

The sun is setting on 8th & Bannock, the trees all surrounded by
redheaded hippyskirt women embellished with giant necklaces
their faces reflecting the deafening neon of too many choices
simply to find a place for drinking coffee

Although I’ve come to my own conclusions, I can’t help but wonder
how Kerouac or Steinbeck would see this street,
these men and women, winding autumnal spectrums, all in stripe-painted scarves—
What value is the human body when juxtaposed with the air it displaces?
Some, perhaps, more than others?

If I choose one café over another, I can justify my decision
by the smile shining from its charismatic barista;—
watching her rearrange bottles of
organic indigenous one-hundred-percent juices;
the fluid movement of her fingertips
the serpentine shimmering of her lips—
coffee is coffee for a dollar & cents
and I bring my own tea
but I settle for a smile of unfeigned rapture
and the various vases of tropical plants

Bridge.
And then I’m struck, holy goddamn!
with visions of fishermen pulled overboard
by the collaborations of hungry waves
and on point ballerinas lifting their skirts for
alabaster-mouthed four chord melodymakers
who never drink alone but bitch and moan over
collapsed record deals from burnt out basement studios—
marksmen on every rooftop taking shots
at all the passers-by, and from their flasks,
but much to high for their
sultry quips and come-ons to lay rest
in the ears of naïve women seeking
one decent man, unbeknownst to them
that decency was lost in half-assed translation
Bridge end.

You on your bicycle heading away from this prosodic café
your apron dry and hanging in the back room with broken chairs
and jars of arabica beans flown in from the Old World
I’ll be on that return trip to try my luck at serpent-charming
as it seems my charms here fall only on deaf human ears

In this thespian café, people’s actions are marked
by stage directions italicized in surtexts floating about their heads
all colloquies are lip-read by crookneck window-watchers
and everyone is suffering from infectious inner monologues
except this smiling barista whose value is inestimable
when juxtaposed with the air she displaces