“Wires” Gene Whipple
The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum
Zeke Roth-Reynolds
24
A café with tables, chairs, and people,
sandwiched between an awning and a brick red terrace.
The café glows with the warmth of an oven,
its light fading into the dark of the night.
The rows of round white tables are arranged
like the buttons on an elevator.
A waiter in all white walks through them,
like a religious figure in white robes.
Stars speckle the night sky;
with yellow centers and white auras,
the large ones look like cooked eggs.
Black buildings loom down the street,
and the light of their windows glows red,
as if they were all massive furnaces.
The road is made of smooth, round stones,
like the tops of people’s heads;
as though a packed crowd of people
with grey, shaved, stony heads,
gathered in troughs to be trod on.