Starbucks belch

Upper East Side

I let fly a belch in Starbucks today,
forgetting I wasn't alone.
I was lost in the NYT,
and it seemed I was alone.
So long since I've been a part of something,
it didn't occur to me I might not be alone.

To my left was a job interview,
two women in business suits
over on the couches,
falling silent after the belch.

To my right one seat over,
a Chinese man I couldn't stop staring at
once the belch had called him to my attention.
His head seemed the longest,
narrowest rectangle I'd ever beheld.

He looked happy to have on a suit
and to be flipping through his appointment book,
making plans,
the way as a child I used to imagine I'd do one day.
I even carried a briefcase
with lists and schedules.
Charts of the distances I kicked
a ball in the backyard, the colors
of the cars passing on Colston Drive,
number and location of animals seen.

Boom, boom, going down the list,
another cell phone appointment,
this man living my fantasy of adulthood,
with the energy of a child.