After midnight, coffee shop dissonance.
A city become mostly memory,
the hard, melancholy kiss of it.

Florescent shadows, hypnagogic glee.

After youth, stealing an hour or two.
Brotherhood become surreptitious cups.
A girl in Brazil. A girl in Europe.

The romantics at their table, their Waterloo.

(I think you see with harsh clarity:
enough to love with gentle repose,
enough to know when it's time to flee.

Dear boy, with your wounds, with your needy soul.)

In the passage, an ancient woman with a harried look,

peeling the heart of an artichoke.