a young couple, male and female as is
often the case, sat at a table in
the back of the room, eating pizza &
staining a game’s wooden letters with their
pizza-sauced fingertips. they (the young
couple) chattered and clattered their hard-
scrabbled words. up front, arrayed at tables
along plate-glass windows, more couples
nattered in their almost-quiet rustling
way. a man stepped up to the counter to
order a drink, a fancy blended, stirred,
poured out, & sprayed with something pressurized
in a can. a reader in one corner
mumbled home-made poetry into
a broken microphone. this room was once
a martial-arts academy for
women and children. later, there was applause.
(Copyright 2003, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)