Morning Coffees

Can you narrate a sequence
Without telling a story?
Language fascinates itself
With whatever it can’t say,

Making the wordless holy,
As if the wordless could smile
And bob for the flattery.
Can you narrate a sequence

That’s not an explanation,
Without telling a story?
The girl with the back tattoo,
The ordinary, boring

Sunburst of a back tattoo
Right between her shoulder blades,
Waits in line in a sundress
To buy a cup of coffee.

Once she’s served, she walks back out
And down the sunny sidewalk,
And now a portly couple
Have stepped up to order theirs.