Tuesday, October 7, 2014

barista haikus


The snap trap mundane

slap of minimum wage life

was murdering my



prefrontal cortex—

tamped and pulled and frothed into

nothing. Yep.  Nothing.



Watercoloring

with ballooned belly, jolly-

white-fur-faced “Santa”



between lattes was

sanity.  We quipped with words—

mostly in haiku-



form.  He was like my

grandfather.  I didn’t yet

know that raucous slurp



of entitlement. 

I did not know the slurring

sludge—the earth lust—how



later he would ask

if I would have a “quickie”

with him during work.



He was slinking slip-

shod switchblade “kindness”. Unzipped

synapses misfired.



I lacked pithy words—

boundaries to shed skin, to shake

off black cinder greed.



My anger teetered

between agency and help-

lessness.  The last won:



I simply asked his

order then made a caramel

mocha in silence.

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