Kaffee Klatch

A doll-sized lamp on my table wears a cumbersome shade, and above, budget chandeliers flash lucite bling. Sprawling brown leather sofas pack the floor. At the windows: black, open-weave sheers—whore’s lace—with zigzags of cheap sparkle. The blatant, palpable sensuality elevates an already unrelenting want. The barista wiggles narrow hips, fondles the rings in his ears, spins once, twice, then wipes the counter with a damp rag. At regular intervals a shrill, male, giggle-wail escapes from the narrow kitchen hidden behind a shuttered door. Before me, brown velvet cascades the full length of a wall, and pinned onto it:  a heart within a heart, the outer one woven from thorny twigs and lit with mini white lights, in its center another, this one of red iridescent glass, puffed, ripe. 

A man enters briskly, then stands at the counter shifting his bulk left, right, left, right, darting eyes scanning the territory. He wears a fedora of pale straw, a red feather waving from its left side, the hat pressed snug over his damp face. Heavy rubber-bottomed velcro sandals are strapped to sun-fried feet. Nylon gym shorts stop just above thick knees.  A square-bottomed, buttoned-down, blue and white polka dot poly shirt is almost as long as the shorts, and open at the throat, reveals a necklace of pierced coral chunks. He turns his attention to the handsome, longhaired, Jesus-looking dude I, too, have been pondering, who leans against a rear wall inspecting the plastic lid of his take-out coffee, lifting it, flipping it, poking a finger through the drink hole, smiling dopily in a psychedelic bliss.  

I talk talk talk about Lynda about music about life about death about Lynda about us about love about me about Lynda. I know if I were not sitting alone sipping this cappuccino that has become tepid, its froth wilted flat, I would be in the thick of a verbal mania again. The amped music turns to Carol King’s It’s too late, a song Lynda had performed, a song she’d sung for me. I remind myself Breathe. I tell myself There is a way through this loss. And yet, how many months, years, more before it springs its claws from my gut?

The polka dot man tentatively steps toward Jesus who regards him with soulful eyes, a delicate smile. They stand side by side and share a moment, the moment, the only one that is: the one alive, just now.