Bearded, wiry
Wearing a green, card-dealer's visor
I am behind you
Where I can't see your face
Are you Asian, I wonder?
Have a face with wrinkles worn in
A face that would hearken a wide-bellied fisherman's boat
Nets and lines
Of the South Pacific?
You sit, pouring over the day's news
A magnifying glass hovering over crisp pages
The little boy
Behind the counter
Sits, perched on a stool
Hunching down over a small, gray television
And calls for his mother, the one who takes our order,
To come and watch with him
She, young,
Perhaps too young
Concedes
Crouches around him
His arms, eagerly coiling around hers as the boy points
Look! Look!
And laughs, as she talks, watching the door
You Two make eyes at each other, pointing and scoffing at these small scenes
And I am uncomfortable
Uncomfortable because I am protective of this
Of these small demonstrations of
Daily-ness
And intimacy
And at Your sense of normalcy
Of Difference From These People
I think to myself
This world is not meant for those who cannot access children,
or the elderly
Not meant for Fashionable Frivolousness
My heart yearns for more than this
Intentional separation.
I walk home
Take-out in hand
And hope that the neighborhood will always sound like Spanish being spoken, children laughing together, teenagers wisking each other off into corners to kiss
And that these opportunists
Who will try to change this place
Will just
Go
HOME!