Day Eleven.
Sifting coffe beans through withered fingers
like they were smooth rocks found on a beach without pebbles.
Feeling each delicately, as if they would crack
crumble and fall away like the shell of a robin’s egg.
Sorting each bean on the counter top of a diner
lost in an age of countless coffee stains
and waitresses with smokey voices
caught in the cloud of cigarette ash.
The old man waits at the counter
with an empty bar stool still left spinning
from the years of memories weighed down upon it
but vacant for these remaining days.
He waits, not wondering for a time to see her again.