Breakfast at Christopher’s

…and I wonder if the whispers are for me…

(I see no one else here who looks like Joseph)

…heard like the rumbling of an approaching front

that has already grown far too cold

(when she took my order her eyes were like the

the lens of those old movie projectors from

the days of D.W. Griffith…)

my first bowl of authentic oatmeal

since…I really can’t recall…becomes

bitter from the lingering aftertaste

of spitting out things produced from

being struck and refraining from striking back

(I check for spit in the oatmeal, or even

mucus: she may have signaled the cook with

a wink)

the whispers tighten around my neck

burning and causing upheaval of the flesh

(I see no one else here who looks like Ezell)

the snowflakes seen through the window have been allowed

to come inside this place where they will surely

maintain their form

a menstrual-induced climate? Maybe…

the loss of blood can begin and end

cycles of change

but I note the way she scrapes the burnt toast

and then angrily brushes the black crumbs

from the white counter top onto the dirty floor

de facto…de jure…de facto…de jure…

I begin to weigh this counsel, like a medium

and my eyes become the steamed mirror

that she styled her hair in this morning

(I see no one else here who looks like David)

a fight with her boyfriend last night? Maybe…

the sound of eggs and hash browns on the grill

brings back the cries of that Birmingham Sunday

as like dew I try to blend the confrontation

of night with the conscience of morning

(some say that this is our inheritance, to

emulate nature while others exploit it…)

any kind of dialogue could begin to spin

like the black stool that I sit on:

wobbly and discolored, on a hollow spindle

(I see no one else here that looks like Franklin)

but, this is my first bowl of authentic oatmeal since…