The grease that lays on diner coffee
swirls like stars on blackest night
oddly colored with a somber gaiety
By neon, whispering comforts.
Caffeine fuels late-night conversations
while preachers sleep
Darlene refills the cracked and dreary
ancient cups
with the liquid of burnt-out stars
strong, and black, and studded with oils.
Pharaohs of Egypt eat undercooked eggs
with the junkie hopped up since noon
and only he sees them.
And the teenagers in the back giggle
over the trenchcoat of the travelling
dictionary salesman,
stained with midnight meals of yore
And this square and dark wooden cubicle,
Table sticky with syrup and unwiped
for hours,
holds our bodies, tense with the words we both won't say.
Hands clasped under gum-stopped table legs
This is our sanctuary
With lips so close over our shared cup of joe
that the galaxies collide if we breathe
too hard.
I am Sif, and you my Thor
This realm we rule together.