Coffee Time, Fuller’s Restaurant
By Michael Lee Johnson


June 29th, 1980, three o’clock A.M.
And I’m getting older by the minute.
Thinking about it makes me tired.
Outside traffic crawls slowly over
slippery pavement like inebriated turtles.
Inside, at the coffee counter, I flirt with a waitress –
fresh young fruit from Montreal.
She insists on calling me Vincent Price
and speaking French in Alberta.
I’m trying to read Periods of the Moon,
by Irving Layton, selecting the human
condition, repetition, and insomnia as
my main themes.
Next to me, a street gypsy drooping
over the counter beside me, pulling
scraps of dog-eared aged newsprint
from a doggie bag. She stares
squint-eyed at a picture of John F. Kennedy
for two hours, manages to laugh an incredible 29 times, sorry, 30 times, 31.
Counting makes me tired,
makes me take notice of this gypsy
and disapprove.

-1980-


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Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa.