My poem, Coffee Shop, is in the current issue of Pirene’s Fountain (15,issue 23). Here is the poems.

Coffee Shop

It was not a hangout
for either of us,
just a coffee shop
half a block from First National,
a place to get out of the weather.

When the heat wave broke,
the storm came in like Man o’ War.
I remember my first thought
on seeing her—“Am I that wet?”
But she recognized me right off,
as if age and gravity
had not had their way.

Everyone thought we would marry,
but we had blown apart
the summer the cities burned,
the year Vietnam
was a nightmare for the wide awake.

Conversation stalled—
after all,
what was I to make
of her—
a woman now
whom I would never know?

We accept the ravages of time
a mirror presents,
but what of the gulfs
engendered?

The rain stopped.
We went our separate ways.
Tonight, I would scan the old memories
like watching reruns of a favorite show
canceled for reasons lost long ago.