(to the memory of Glen Kirkland)
The grumpy queue shortened.
“No fat” decreed the matron
in front of me.
“No whip” cried her friend.
“Next” and a barrista’s
what’s-your-pleasure look.
“Latte,” I asked
and settled for a tall.
Oh, the way she pulled
the nozzle down
and wiped it clean
left no doubt she knew
how to handle a customer,
brisk and business-like.
“Do you want foam?”
she whispered, pumping
and I pondered her performance
and Sigmund Freud–
Would he have had his grande?
“How come no men serve?”
I ventured.
She smirked and shot back
“They don’t keep things clean.”
“Ah,” I said, suppressing a grin
and stirred my poem to go.