You sit down with your coffee.
The short order cook is busy at the grill.
Things you cannot see sizzle.

There is music here. There is always musc here.
Eclectic and sometimes strange, rarely
what you would think of as morning music,
quirky and boppy with a bass beat you feel,
one of the benefits of a place run by musicians
instead of accountants.

The coffee is good. Rich. Almost, but not quite harsh.
Alive. A tonic for the past night’s dreams.
They were joyous things, your dreams,
full of blue skies and Abba,
interiours out of Architectural Digest,
beautiful and simple and white.
But always interrupted by betrayal.
You would wake, and insist on sleeping again,
hoping for a different ending that never bore fruit.

Better to wake. Better to shake off the lies of the night,
a power that rises only when you wake,
and like a soldier before battle, prepare yourself
for what is real.