Receipt
‘Would you like the sea?’
I say yes,
puzzled.
Tamp,
and another afternoon’s second coffee –
she is Russian, or Ukrainian,
and so I realise she said receipt.
‘I gave you a hard time earlier today,’
her Indian boss says, alongside
the machine where she’s making my milk
bluff.
And she, ‘Not so much,’ and gives
half a shrug
he doesn’t see because of his espresso sip.
‘Excuse me,’ says the man after paper towels
– on the counter, by the water – the man
who has just vacated that booth
near the window I don’t want
to want so much.
I step back, in fuller possession
of something.
