BREAKFAST AT THE CROW'S FOOT CAFE

Ravens and snowflakes perched on our shoulders
leaving the place between fast and slow rivers
to break our fast at the Crow's Foot Cafe.

We glowed at the center of the room,
elbows and knees rubbed bright and raw,
the oil of passion from every pore,

pheromones of ecstasy
that turned the noses of women and men
from their fresh-squeezed juice and scrambled eggs.

I dribbled coffee on the way to my mouth,
my hands unsteady. But our eyes were braced
and leg-locked together.

You still drew your breath in quick and short
and exhaled long and slow, like on the low slopes
leading up the mountains of your wordless mantras.

The North Fork hummed to our vibrations.
We hovered whole on the edge of rapture,
lost in eyes and breathing and pancakes,

the sticky syrup
of bodies inside each other
leaking from the legs of our jeans.


© 2001 by Richard W. Todd

Next Poem