More Poetry by Carlos Martinez

Over coffee

Here is the best of everything – you sitting in a chair
at a table in a café at the back of a bookstore where

the dust motes glide through the air as easily as wrens
and crowds bustle up and down the aisles looking for

the latest self-help books, the most recent diet guide
while you and I sip coffee and tea and eat

freshly-baked scones and the children
suburban mothers tow along behind them

make noise as their rubber-soled shoes drag across
scuffed linoleum. In front of me, the leather-bound anthology of

contemporary poetry you bought for me, my hands
resting on its front cover, which is as warm as flesh.

Your hair is so blond it sheds light, this dim corner
illumined by it and I am so much dazzled, I cast

my eyes down to where the scratched tabletop reflects it.
Wrong is what people say, those who have never sat

at a table in a café at the back of a bookstore where
rain’s driven crowds inside to browse

rows of books, where I am
a tongue-tied middle-aged man

whose gray-haired head
plays moon to yours.

Bio and more poetry by Carlos Martinez can be found by clicking here.

Comments

[A Secret Admirer]

This poem is really good. I would like to marry Carlos when I grow up.

[Alan Walsh]

Fantastic poem. The imagery is so vivid and the language so vibrant it sucked me straight in. Thanks for the moment, Carlos.