Dirty Table

Dirty Table, full of crumbs
Little Spanish cashier maybe,
Or super charming Hindu girl.
A cute slightly chubby girl enters.
She slides in the queue.
A young, long-nose, skinny girl
steals the napkins from my table.

I blow into my hot chocolate, which is pure suds.
Being weightless, gravity, it has none.
($) Three bucks twenty five for just air and foam.

The cute slightly chubby girl asks me if it’d bother me
her shearing my double table. Everything else is occupied.
How could it bother me??!! “ Off course go ahead….!!!”
Her green nail polish has almost completely fallen off.
She has a really nice little face, she can’t be more than twenty.

Time never does go by when you are waiting….
The smell of hamburgers mixes with the sizzling
sound they make as they broil in the grill,
The sound is interrupted by the sound of an agile spatula
scraping the grease of the hot top.

My neighbor and I look straight ahead as not to violate
each other’s field of vision, thus creating a new kind of
geometric personal space…. linear, instead of a bubble.

The fat black guy on the table behind me finally left.
I can finally move my chair a bit and breathe.

My last 5 minutes can be described as spent in a stage
where actors come and go, in front of a stage made of
J’O Crunch yogurt, bottles of Snapple, sodas, Vitamin Water
Snyder’s pretzels, Cape Cod Chips, Sunchips, sandwiches salads,
cookies, and slices of fudge and cheese cake….

I should go, before my neighbor finishes her sandwich.
It usually gets awkward when both get up to leave at once.
Should I stare straight ahead as I get up avoiding eye contact?
I don’t, and I return the kind beautiful smile that is being given to me.
I nod at her and I leave while my feelings of ego swelling are invaded
by those of regret for not having said a single word to her….

I leave and cross the street….6th Avenue and W16th Street. I think about turning back, but the rest of reality awaits me… “Hello there reality… good to be back”…
ACD
12-16-09