Well Being

The light fractures the room, fissures
the spindles of chairs. Long shadows reach
for the back of the cafe and lay
window-prism rainbows across hardwood floors.

Autumn falls winter in the steam and
the frost glare of the front store glass
as the waitress wipes the milk and
honey shelf, dusting sugar motes
into the air.

Late afternoon turns
mid-November evening down the street where
the red maple holds rust leaves in abeyance
while the lamp post Christmas snowflake
glimmers decorative before a farther off chimney,
smoke blown horizontal by north winds streaming
steady over roof tops.

My feet slowly warm
from a day spent re-pointing stone, the scents
of lime and mortar and earth-must mingle
with antijitos and coffee and the dirty wool
of my pullover and the spices that drift
over the kitchen divider.

The work week
is over, hours diminished, pay dropping
to the cold weather, to ice and rain and
snow from sun-hot Monday to frigid Friday,
tarped-over into a kerosene summer.

Money already banked onto my bills, I have cash
in my pocket and crafted hours of rock-hewn
wall-set satisfyingly behind me.

The clatter of dishes accentuates the chatter
from tables, the waitress thanking customers
as they go, while the stereo and a whistler
at the cash sound the coming of dusk.

The sun slips behind Victorian brick.
The heat-fogged windows begin to glow
with well-being.