Customer

At a wobbly corner two top
I've waited my life in silence
for you, the one who's always
harried or bored, underworked,
overtipped, the reverse.
The doublemint crack chatter
at the counter, so sweetly
brusque, firm and flush, pneumatic,
a fever of words, an evergreen
of recollections, the eternal core
of smoke curlicues at closing time.
How I've envied your sudden
medusa in the face of putdowns,
feared your sail on the mast over
dead calms, how your twin keels
of grace and purpose during any
lunch rush have made me the fool
of patience. Look, I'm old now.
I've seen what I wanted to see.
What I didn't want to talk about
has become my two hands,
lists of knuckle and bone.
But I'm still alive enough to do
the trick you love, the one where
I fold up and tear a paper napkin
into the shape of what has stopped,
on occasion, your body bejeweled
with steaming plates, your stack
of dirty looks halted at the ache
of purchase under one more
laden tray, what my averted eyes
have meant all these years --
by the water glass ring, a single rose.