The Café Kiss
by Jeffrey C Alfier


The woman arrives, sits alone at first,
the forbearance on her face so weathered
you know it’s a man she waits for. He shows,
leans down and kisses her once, then again
for a few seconds longer than the first,
the kind of kiss that says, “No I really
mean it this time.” Wearily she presses
fingers to her eyelids, her ire restrained
at something he said, or intimated,
by way of that first unrelenting kiss.






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