By bakman (enterprise2@mindspring.com)
Date: 27 August 1997

Coffee at the Caribou/Bastille Day 1996/Atlanta, Ga.

                Coffee at the Caribou/ Bastille Day, 1996/ Atlanta, Ga.

    She asked for my ashtray in a voice full of timbre,
    It was outside, at the coffee place, me working a second half and half; 
half regular-half decaf.
    I'd seen her once before, same place, in the sun, reading: short skirt, 
dark hair, pretty face; low-cut shirt, white, union style, and breasts subtly 
full of pride.
    I noticed but tried not to, hid behind my paper on the other side of the 
glass, positioned my air-conditioned self so a concert poster kept her from 
view, me from temptation, the too-cute try at flirtation.
    A woman's not just a woman anymore,
    For the question always hangs there: what becomes of the chase when the 
chase is done?
    It's all too complex for me. For both me and for poetry.

    The challenge this day is just don't look, don't set off to wonder what t
he two of us could be doing down the road if I looked too long,
    And she looked back.


    One day later, maybe wiser for it, there I was again, reading a Times 
from the day before, a long story I hadn't had a chance to.
    I folded it up and left it behind and then it was that she breezed by,
    Charmed me out of my ashtray --it happened so fast-- and brought forth 
from me a sigh inside,
    I regained enough to reserve the right to ask to use the tray sometime, 
somewhere later down the line.
    Then  a guy came by to stub out a butt, and I entertained the same idea,
    But had this fear my hand would shake, I'd burn a finger, embarrass myself 
in front of her.
    Yet still I thought to go steal a moment and listen to the voice, see her 
close up; see if my tail would be wagging like a nuzzled puppy.
    So I went over and asked her to share it, butt-full and stained,  gray.

                 -------------

    She told me she taught music and I thought voice.  Instead I asked what 
her instrument was and that's what she said, voice. I told her that's what 
I was about to say.
    From Canada, Alberta, wondering whether to stick around for the Five-
Ring Affair or head west and bound for L.A.
    I told her this story about the Mexican thing and she smiled and asked 
me if it was something I'd read in the papers.
    Papers, TV, AP, I said, hey, it's all over the place. Whether for convenience 
or grace, I did not
say I also wrote it.
   It was that bright about the Olympics ticket agent tells a caller:  "New Mexico, 
Old Mexico...I don't care. You can't get tickets by phone from here if you're not 
from the states."
    I told her about the Real People's Olympics and one of the events: driving 
through traffic with a full cup of coffee and not spilling any.
    "Was that in the newspaper, too?"  she asked.
    Yes, it was, said I, a column by Molly Ivins.
    Then she got her refill and went off to try it, driving through traffic with a 
cup full.

            --------------------------------

    Now I'm wondering how she did and, if she didn't do well,  how to get latte stains 
off a bright, white blouse,
    But I never did ask her name,
    Or proffer mine,
    Not quite sure why,
    But I'll hope tomorrow's schedule lets me get my morning bagel on her time.
    I might bring another Times and find some good stories to tell.

     The funny thing is I listened to her mostly and glanced at that swell only once or 
twice, kind of forgot about them.
     Maybe for the same reason I didn't get the name.
    Could it be her voice that stilled my noise inside?
    The quips?
    Some fantasy I haven't even had yet of a weekend trip to the mountains or the sea?

    I cruised the Caribou later that day, looking, ending up in the air-conditioning 
with but a pressed, iced Kenyan, an activity of mine now on a regular basis.
    When it's not her, but only me.

         --Bakman
          (email: enterprise2@mindspring.com)