Cafe Zoetrope
(For William Taylor Jr.)
After a North Beach poetry reading
by a San Francisco writer friend
I stop at the Coppola Cafe
for a glass of red wine
So very San Francisco
…And a cute young bartender
with coy
curious eyes
taking-in every facet
every moment
of this life before her
Sipping my drink
I watch as she makes
her strange elixirs
with chrome strainers
crushed ice
shaved and fragrant
fruit peels
In another time
we might later
find ourselves
in wonderful and mysterious
intimacies
But those days are
long gone now
at least for me
and with someone like her
My likely mysterious intimacies
might now involve
unexpected medical results
or an errant lab finding
“…This one is
what could be concerning”
I people-watch for a time
the other patrons…
their flirtations, their conversations
or just lost in digital reveries
and then finally finish my wine
Standing out on the sidewalk
in the winter night
I watch the bartender
still doing her thing
there in the warmth within
the light within
Ghost-like
I pull my coat up
against the gathering wind
and then write down
these words
Steven Meloan‘s short fiction collection, St. James Infirmary, was released in 2023 on Roadside Press, and a collaboration collection with his brother Michael, The Kind the Pharaohs Try, was released in 2024 on Naked Light Press. He is currently working on a collection of poetry. He is a recovered software developer, and a former busker in London, Paris, and Berlin.
