Salt and Pepper
He’s bent over the counter,
his back arched by time.
He’s smiling, broad,
his face cracks into a million smiles.
He’s singing a creaky old love song
It has such lonely words.
Fingers smear the glass
with a white, faltering grip.
He has no fiery ambition,
no mastery will to live,
no kindness born of affluence,
no happiness to give.
He’s leaning back on the wood,
it’s convolutions planned,
moving back, and forward
and back. And forward.
The coffee scalds his tongue,
like nitrogen that’s cold
giving heat, taking heat
it’s all the same to him.