THE SERIAL SOBRIQUETIST
Nobody knows
but her.
Not the barista
behind the counter.
Not anyone standing
in line. Not even
those who are waiting,
like her, to collect
their drink order.
She does it solely
to entertain herself,
to make life
a little less
hum-drum,
a little less
run-of-the-mill,
you might say.
She takes
an ordinary event,
like getting
a cup of coffee,
and turns it
into something
silently sensational
by infusing it with
some good old-fashion
imagination. The barista
sets her drink
on the counter
and barks like
an auctioneer
to no one in particular,
Norton. Our heroine,
feeling a bit
like a child shoplifter
stealing a pack of Wrigley’s
from the corner drug store
unnoticed,
sweeps in to scoop
up her drink,
now donning a name
that’s not hers.
Her fake-name is
her little secret.
Her artful
improvisation.
Today it’s Norton
tomorrow
it may be Everest
or MacGuffin.
Her whimsy will
decide - which
reminds me
of the prank, Pessoa,
the great Portuguese poet
would pull
on hot summer days
in Lisbon: he would
toss his blue wool hat
to strangers
in the street
to watch them
become a little
less strange
as their hands
fumbled nervously,
poetically
to make the catch.
Her fake-coffee-name is
her way of making herself
a little less strange
in a world that keeps
getting alarmingly stranger
one prosaic day at a time.
