Jennifer M. Pierson

a modern day David in a cafe

your words fall from a far off somewhere
onto the shadowed lids of my eyes

the twist of grey hair at the base of your neck
prepares me for an inevitable age

are you that wise?

I come here often
you bring your absence to bury the passion of my reason

in some foreign cafe of my mind
I am longing for Angkor Wat or Everest

the city of old Jerusalem at my back

you think my attention is yours
to marry with your magnet eyes

your twirl of fingers across the edges
of that sweet brown cake
touches the sandy back of my throat

I know its sugar—I see you wanting
the other women gab and gather—you do not care

I mark my moments like Bathsheba waiting

tomorrow I will knit the moon a cover of beetles and walk out into heat
bearing an amulet of your eyes