Coffee: a poem

My favorite seat beside the wooden beam
that shields my back from prying eyes and gives
me the illusion of invisibil-
ity, looks out into the lazy wak-
ing street. I hug my warm cup of coffee
between my frozen hands as my eyes fill
to bursting with the simple line of text
which has announced itself with a soft “ping”
that hardly matches the earth-rending crack
it evokes in my life, splitting my world
into two distinct halves: before and af-

ter. In the space between this, dead and still,
I am aware of time and breath and the
scent of the sweetened coffee in my hands
which I will never drink. And of the laugh-
ing face of the barista coaxing tips
from the attractive man who leans, relaxed
and interested, while she slides his drink
towards his clean and soft, rolex-clad wrist.
And of the trembling, filthy, grey old man
who wears a coat that’s far too large for his
emaciated frame. He’s whittled down
into this lost and fumbling skeleton
since he obeyed the call and traded both
his youth and strength to gain a ball-cap crown
with words on it that no one cares to read.
He’s watching the young mother coming in
with tired smiling eyes and fingers clasped
around the wriggling hand of a small girl.
The girl is bouncing with the energy
and promise that the sun brings each morning.
Adventure waits. Her mouth is overflow-
ing with a babbling river of nonsense.

But I can feel the urgent pull of time
dragging me back into its ceaseless flow.
I break free of the scene. I rise. I snatch
my phone and race toward the door, leaving
the lives I’ve seen in snapshot frozen there
forever in my mind. And I cannot
wake them because I cannot find the strength
to go back in that coffee shop. Because
if I should not find it just as it was
that morning, if it did not hold it’s shape
as the last inhale of my childhood,
if it had the audacity to move
forward, then I will know that this tightness
inside my chest is because I have yet
to exhale. That I’m still holding my breath.

I need to walk away and believe that
my coffee is still there and it’s still warm.