Rainy afternoon coffee on the shitty end of Larimer Street-
The kind of day that always pulled me to brown liquor as a young buck;
Drinking on the boat as we ran the lines-
Slaves to currents and tides then, not weather.
Now, as the rest of the party has repaired elsewhere to
Toast with THC gummies and loaded lollipops,
I sip harsh black coffee less than a mile from
Neal Cassady’s childhood home.
Should I have gotten the cream?
Her question threw me.
Still can, but not sure.
Do I usually take cream?
The surface of the coffee waves and crests with the
Vibrations of my hand; so I clatter it back down,
Again wiping at the new crescent moon between my
Thumb and forefinger.
My first tattoo-still fresh enough to feel foreign.
My dad had an uncle who died on a bar stool.
That meant a lot to him-he told the story often.
He’d also killed five men
But three were in the war so they didn’t count.
The old man never disowned him until his own deathbed;
Far too late.
The fucking stories we choose-
The characters we become.
I’m getting the cream.
It’s right there-just get it.
Maybe the next one.
Might as well,
This rain will not let up.
“…Nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.”
-Jack Kerouac, On The Road
© TDR 2017
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