I love writing at coffee shops, no distractions other than a million, such as interesting patrons conversing next to me, music that I want to run from or melt into. I love this piece of art that was at a Starbucks, a cross between a mermaid and a cloth dummy used for target practice, heh, a lot like how I feel sometimes! The marks person is life, the bullets, opportunities to run and melt. Two poems in a row that plea for succor, thanks for bearing bearing with me.
Sobbing at Starbucks
I duck my head at first
to hide my tears
until I don’t.
Perhaps it is the bluesy
folk music they play
that my SoundHound
magically plucks from the ethers,
titles that speak to the poet
and meaning seeker in me,
songs like Blue Faith
on albums such as The Revival.
Also yesterday
a semi was driven into
a crowd at Bastille day in Paris
killing 80 people
and I was listened to deeply
last night and not everyone has that,
and held and not everyone
has that either.
I have a daughter who
despite my vitriol
texted me a picture
of banana bread she made
while I was gone.
It was that thumbnail,
a postage stamp reminder of her sweetness
on my phone screen
while I sipped my earl gray tea
that unlatched me.
Tears had not come
when my dear friend’s
son overdosed and died Monday.
Twenty-one years ago,
I took her pregnancy portrait-
golden light on a beach,
ivory blouse open to reveal her golden belly
and then photographed him as a baby
blue eyes even to temples,
and this world, hair halo white.
Nor did I cry with joy
when another friend
gave birth Wednesday
and I watched her four year old
who gallantly sucked in his sadness
that his parents weren’t there
to tuck him in.
None of this, not the happiness
or fear or grief, none undid me
when it was convenient
and I could go to my bedroom,
close the door, turn on the fan.
Rather here among guitar
and harmonies and the hiss
of an espresso machine
and tables full of women and men
holding business meetings,
catching up on gossip,
discussing the cool summer.
I wonder how we keep going
and don’t all run wailing
and fall on the floor
like tantrumming toddlers.
I wonder about our coping mechanisms
which work until they don’t.
I weep while patrons jockey for outlets
and check their phones and
glance toward the glass front doors.
I wonder how many of them if
invited, would,
could,
should
sit with me and sob.