He Was a Regular in the Coffee Shop by Bret Norwood

In wind the stiff snowdrifts change. One rigid, cold form,

another eats, edits out–revised, reformed, lost.

It blows outside the café as baristas, clerks,

are serving drinks short of hands–

they work though short a pair of hands.

 

The sheen of white snow outside endows with thick shade

the whole café, weighs the store inside with rich, dark

and cozy atmospheres, pierced by the golden stars

of sagging stringed Christmas lights,

of Christmas lights that sag in strings

 

and make their gold magic signs. I see the steam waft

from off my black drink and rise, with thoughts, to Up High–

the Source phenomena count as their secret fount,

the Holy Ghost sending snow,

the Holy Ghost who sends the snow

 

that packs the gray basin, packs the slickened rim road–

on this my roused mind is set, that life is not made

to be despised–or if even it were, what good is that,

to waste a life hating life,

to hate this life and waste it so?

 

I should have asked out (amid our flirting) Anne Black–

the dark-haired girl once who dripped the rich and dark roast

into my porcelain cup, from whose hand I drank,

on whom entrenched thoughts abide,

on whom my thoughts, entrenched, abide.