Café on Stevenson Street
By C.J. Renz, OP - Berkeley, California, USA - 24 May 2015
They wander into the building
each morning
like the tide towards mottled pools
at Stinson, where starfish
are glued to rock like smokers
to pillared ash trays
puffing away at the edge of life
pacing, always anxious to get back in.
Some have hard hats, even harder,
broader bodies, with hand-held voices
sputtering something important (they're sure of it!)
into the air, a staccato over the jazz
piano-music floating through the room,
trying to lean outward like this small rose
in a table vase, each of them on the sandy
shores of this vertical beach, stretching on forever . . .
a woman with auburn hair
floats by
she is white lace-foam
over this endless ebb and flow
of black leather wallets and briefcases
of the all-too-neat, the coifed
-----but empty
bodies
she is
the pull from the moon
which gives the sea a bit of
grace.