i recall seeing you in september, you were drinking a coffee and your lengthy unkempt hair spilt down over what was probably an old sweater of your mother's. i thought maybe aphrodite had come down from olympus for a cup of hot water & cream & ground columbian beans. you were kind of lost in something on your phone, (kept looking at it there on the table) shifting your legs. there was a grocery bag beside you---not very full. maybe there were just a few things you’d needed? some orange juice and semolina pasta. but i was most impressed by a little mesh bag holding a dozen babybels, small and red like sliced apples thru the plastic. (christ, those are good.) after you left i went and bought a few, back home just sorta held them in my open palm eating them at leisure, committing your face
to memory.