Your Closing
A taste for bitter coffee
the occasional sweet.
The additional minutes
that lay before me.
The past turn away from you
leading to your early opening.
The first free coffee of the day
a likely possibility.
The coffee card punched
giving way for someone else.
A chance encounter
a fleeting glance.
The briefest social encounter
during the deadly Covid dance.
Masked upon arrival
quick feet in and out.
Your corner spot
a regular crossing point.
The many connections
over the years.
Shared stories of joys
and fears.
Seeds of information
from the good to the bad.
The shelves of pastries
deli goods.
The members of
our neighborhood.
Passing tourists, new faces
license plates.
Familiar vehicles of
common friends , family.
Drawn and joined by
beer and wine.
Fresh bread the
aroma of cooked food.
All the mysteries and wonders
of a complex venue.
To see and be seen,
to taste and smell.
To hear and listen in
to voices, other conversations.
A place to find the missing
meaning of time and place.
A first of day greeting
a held open door.
A ritual, a rite of
early morning passage.
But a jolt of despair
on discovering your closing.
Racks in the driveway
a sign in your door.
A place of coffee
sweets no more.
A loss for words
the memory of taste.
Swept away, a loss
of fate.
A diamond in the rough,
a loss to the community.
A sensory grieving
with nothing to replace it with.
The ache of a simple love lost
not to return.
No steps to grace the floor
of the empty space.
No celebration for the
senses of the living.
The dry coffee pot
a sign of how things change.
Not always for the better
the new taste brings..
Event Date
Address
United States