If there was a can of coffee I could peel open
from the side to look into, and if behind the
razor curl of that tin door I made I saw the pallid pink
side of a beating heart smoothing against
silvered walls, and if I could place it back on
the shelf then with the Bustelo and the
Folgers, bleeding through its labels and onto
the floor and pick up the next one and the
next one until I found what I was looking for,
and if I bought some coffee finally, if I
could trudge on further into my headphones
through sliding glass lips into a snowing fridge of January
and meet you at The Eatery on West Cary street, if
we shared pork Lo Mein or fried dumplings,
our dripping jackets on the backs of our
swiveling stools, the young sons of the
cooks running around laughing with the customers
in line, if we could watch them grow there, I could sit
for years at these yellow tables with you, dying of boredom,
and if there was a fortune cookie I could crush at the end
being careful not to open the wrapping in the
process, and if I could read through the cellophane
and crumbs what the slip has to say before
committing, if seeing a boring
warning of melancholy or some such irrelevance
I could set it on the table unopened as if I were free
from it then, if then we went into the night full
and available and careening on our wheels through stopping
signals fast and cold together, if then we were two friends
in love with ourselves only because we were with each other.