§ Sitting in a Busy Downtown Coffee Shop on a Thursday Afternoon
I can’t help asking myself,
“Doesn’t anybody have a job?”
And if they do, how can I get a job like that,
with enough free time and relaxation
to visit a coffee shop and read a novel.
A man in a black suit sits in a brown leather couch
reading Dickens and glancing at his Rolex.
What is the suit for?
How can a Thursday-afternoon patron of coffee shops afford a Rolex
if he spends his business hours in coffee shops.
Then I wonder if he is a poet,
taking moments out of his day to scribble down his thoughts
and then returning to David Copperfield.
What a bum.
§ Airport
She stands in the terminal
nervously peeling off her red nailpolish.
She glances back and forth
between the arrival gate and the television
that flashes a green sign “Arrived.”
She begins to pace.
It seems as though she’s making all the other waiting people anxious.
What is the rush?
Should we be worried too?
When the passengers begin to pour down the ramp,
she becomes more frenzied.
Red chips fly off of her
like water off of a wet dog
attempting to shake himself dry.
When she sees him,
the one she was waiting so frantically for,
a wave of calm rushes over her face,
and her hands abandon her fingernails
as they wrap themselves around his neck.
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1 comment:
The coffeehouse poem is very Collins-like, especially the title and intro. The structure, the language, and length are simple yet vivid and memorable. The imagery really works and the impression upon the reader is lasting. There seems to be some disillusionment here; the man in the suit is mysterious. The unveiling for the poet of capitalism's realities or someone who has, himself, transcended boundaries and, therefore, found a way to be reading Dickens in a coffeehouse on a Thursday afternoon while wearing a black suit and a Rolex, grabbing a poet's curiosity, condemnation, envy?
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