I walk up to the counter ready to place an order to go.
With coffee and cookie in tow,
i head to my favorite spot and get ready for the show.
3..2..1 let's go!
What's the show you ask?
I don't know! It's different every day
and plays whether the sky is blue or gray.
It could be a traffic jam,
a man trying to wash people's cars,
someone getting arrested,
or even a guy in a costume saying he's an alien from mars. Whatever plays that day, it never gets old.
I get to learn about the people of my city
while staying out of the cold

From the back of the line—
Well, second to the back—
I see her there;
She is beautiful:
Piercing blue eyes,
Wavy brunette,
Sharp, cute nose,
Striking chin;
She is beautiful
Like the other two she is with—
Yet with the melancholy in her jewel-eyes,
More so.

She is much prettier
Than your average third-wheel;
And yet there she stands,
Waving a dismissive hand
At the offer of her two friends—
A couple, hands all over each other;
It is difficult to tell
Whose hands are whose—
To pay for her coffee;
She pays for her own.

A fifth-wear flannel, reek and all, drifted past me today,
came and went as I sat cross-legged, marinating in the patina-ed
post-meridian.
He took one last apathetic drag from a half-burnt
cigarette.

Let it fall through his fingers and onto
the cobblestones below. Callous:
an afterthought, he ball-changed and crushed
the smoke-spitting litter
underfoot.

Left me to stare at it there,
still twisting plumes
of itself up and out, streaking, snatched away
in the wind.

Left me to watch this
wisp of him sputter its
death-throes in the street.

Rastafarian perches on a BT wiring cab
Slapping dark green metal and screaming
Obscenities in Patois and nonsense
Alone.

          Passersby stare; shrieking oldies;
                                       laughing kids;
                                       bewildered Neil;
                                       and I

Sit drinking, taking it all in
Alone.