Asphalt

I followed the factory spills, the fumes
of Diesel cars banned from the city center
that gathered in carpool parking lots
like civil servants at a fire drill.

I followed the pushy cabs, and the bass notes
of a local cover band’s soundcheck
five men with a midlife crisis,
playing the same setlist
every week, for the last twenty years. 

What I found was a spring afternoon,
stretching on the asphalt like a lazy cat
warmth crawling under my winter clothes.

Yawning bar staff fighting the remains
of a wild Friday night with brown soap
strong arms reaching for full beer barrels. 

Ice cubes clinking in a cocktail glass
clear as a wind chime on a summer’s day 
and the waiter who winked at me, saying
“it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

And it hit me

not for the first time, how this city
is an old friend with whom contact faded,
but who embraces me without hesitation
every time we meet, by accident.

published by The Poetry Lighthouse