Crumbs of Reality

By Maria Zaharatos

Romantic comedies are the soul of the coffee shop 
Around us there are people, 
Phone-calls to a partner, to a lover, 
Chats about goddamn politics, and the weather 
There is young love and broken love and boredom 
Repressed words downed with an espresso shot 
How easy it is, drunk on coffee-beans 
to become crickets: 
Silent in their all-knowing size 
Slipping into the cracks of these other realities 
A scene at once intimate but shown on the big screen… 
And when we find ourselves in the liminal spaces 
Where fantasy is freed from worries 
The honest reality becomes the leftover cookie crumbs
At the bottom of a glass of warm milk