Almost
It was never about the coffee,
not for me.
A chill afternoon breeze
ghosted off the river
and up my sleeves,
numbing my fingers
wrapped tight
around an insufficient half-decaf.
You strolled perilously close to me,
our syncopated strides
reflecting the fractured rhythm
of a conversation
that bobbed and drifted
in the shallower, safer waters
of work and children.
My chilling arm shivered
with the memory of
a San Francisco night,
when a drugged-up homeless guy
frightened you so much
that you clenched my arm
tight against your side
all the way up Market Street.
I slowed my stride
so we strolled together
at an almost–
almost–
scandalous pace.
We parted at the elevator,
and all the train ride home
I wondered if I would have
accepted the invitation
we both knew you couldn’t make.
Now in the bar next to gate B-7,
I gaze into the glare
of an emptied whisky glass,
its curved bottom refracting
my thoughts in the sharp
afternoon sunlight,
like the wineglass
on that San Francisco night,
when we talked over dinner
about office politics
and your autistic son
and my depressed daughter
and everything acceptable.
It was never about the wine, not for me.
And it wasn’t about the coffee this afternoon.
It never was.