At eighteen I walked into a coffee shop- while my conscience was just begging to escape the shell I'd built for it. Back then, I could feel every person and surface from inside the pit of my stomach - the kind of sensation only a teenager could have. It seemed fitting then, that the first thing my eyes were trained to were the walls ...
Brick walls
A couch on the landing
Where an older man sat
And smiled – I was undone
While his girlfriend watched from the bar
I sat on the balcony
With close friends who were aware
That our return downstairs was anticipated -
By eyes eager to see how we moved in our youth
Whether we did it smoothly
Were confident
and Calculating –
Whether we moved like water:
Flexible and insistent
Strong, smooth
Soothing to those who might
take us in
Brick walls
Couldn’t keep the ghosts
Of long nights, moving lights, house music,
Or the recklessness of young bodies:
Fast. Fickle. Temporary.
As we left we passed
A vase holding biscotti
- that no one bought
And a sign that read:
“The bread that goes both ways.”
(Java Coffeehouse – Victoria BC 1996)
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