by Heather Neidlinger
while I sit in the same two-seater
I always claim when I come here because
there’s something about the dustspecked grain of the
arched entryway. How the
string lights lazyswoop in each window.
How the barista pounds the bar with
her little silver steamer mugs of milk and
call your name out when your drink is done like an
old friend spotting you across the room.
I see you, stillstranger,
come through the door,
three red leaves and a gust of wind
in your wake.
You sit at a two-seater next to me,
splay the secrets of your bag
across it like a tarot spread,
order a drink so that the
barista begins her
poundingpoundingpounding again.
Your eyes are a bluegreen I’ve
never seen and
there is a deepdip in your
right cheek when you smile and
I wonder, suddenly, if you will
tell me my future.
I hear the pounding of a silver mug and then
your name for the first time
as the barista calls it out and
I think, maybe,
I will remember today after all.
