I peer across the table at her face;
serene features obscured by steam rising
from my coffee. I gaze down into murky
depths of a plastic cup, where dark liquid
broods, primeval ooze, out of which new
life may yet evolve. I feel out of place,
sitting in a Co-op snack bar, in what
could be any suburban town. My clothes
droop, shabby and uncomfortable, while
my hands flutter helpless as trapped birds on
the ends of goose-fleshed arms. I brush stray
hairs back in place behind my ears, as I watch
traffic passing by outside. I read words
on the sides of lorries. Bizarre fragments
of mobile poetry. Perhaps, one day,
they will assemble themselves into a
coherent, epic work. I find it so
difficult to understand her lack of
concern. She appears content to read some
lurid paperback astrology book,
while the world solidifies around us,
like quick drying cement. I lift my cup
to my lips. A bitter, scalding fluid
emerges from beneath a layer of
non-dairy froth and burns the roof of my
mouth. Through a haze of tears, the zodiac
mandala on the cover of her book
also burns, bright with the false promise of
magic. A woman comes to clean up our
table. She does so with a damp, dirty
cloth and a single, negligent sweep of
her arm. A few crumbs are arranged in a
slightly different pattern and grease stains
become blurred at the edges. I am sure
that a symbolic message can be read
into this act, as the same forces that
shape stars into constellations also
scatter grains of sugar on cheap veneer.
No sign could be more significant than
the endless cycle of normality.
