Serenity Scrubs the Floor

Serenity wipes down coffee-stained tables
With steam calloused hands.
Saturated by the aromatic Bean,
She cleans and blends and grinds and pours
For poor old men poring over youth
And curves hugged tight by a black apron
Splotched with curdled milk.
With aching back and tender ribs
From a drunken fall two nights before
She goes out back and touches sulfur flame
To nicotine tip, takes shallow drags,
And lets the rain-soaked walls
Shield her from undressing eyes.

A puddle reflects fluorescence between her feet.
Shadowy ripples distort a restless youth
Shackled by debt and doubt and the roundabout
Promises of New York cameramen on indie-films
In trust for thrust deals for a place to crash.
The mechanical motions of intimacy played on stage
In plain view of an apathetic id.

She flicks her butt with disaffected air
And watches wet ground snuff embers
In a final wisp of smoke. Gooseflesh prickles
Along her slender arms at the chill blow
Of a sojourner storm carrying distant rumbles.

Serenity mops up spilled milk with dry eyes,
While worshipped by lonely men who see pedestals
Where women walk

~Peter