Let's have coffee: but first we must worship
the black angus, rearing its head in barbecue neon.
I know a place. And you will follow me to
drink, your lips lurid as bloodfruits as
the dance makes you warm.
Filled with dim light, awash in loud chatter.
Like-minded others shoulder each other towards
symbolic surrender. It is essential the quarry
feign blindness. Cigarettes lit like incense
veil faces with smoke. This is my show. Though
amazingly photogenic, you will merely guest star.
The implications of coat check and evening rental
can be ignored, but the bill must be paid when
the waiter insists. It is time to go and you
are after all hungry. Having moved, the waitress
is slow and hangs like a wraith, but in diner's rehab
fluorescence she is Mother Love: the Patron Saint of Refill,
nudging sinners toward a caffeinated sanity, a rapid-fire truth.