John Grochalski

cafes in paris

i can’t speak

a foreign language

i can’t speak english well enough

to satiate my own thirst

for what it is that i want from this world

but i’ve sat in cafes in paris

staring at a statue of balzac by rodin

with the swirl of boisterous discourse

going on all around me

not understanding

a single word being said

and i felt more alive that way

like the luckiest man

on the face of the earth.

orange ash sky

we eat

german currywurst

under the orange ash sky in seattle

the woman who served us

says her family home in utah

may burn to the ground

forty-five years her parents have been there

to maybe go up like a pack of matchsticks

we nod in sympathy

ingest currywurst and soot

as the pacific northwest burns in fiery splendor

as the desert rages in brushfires and heat

as california suffocates

as hurricane flood waters drown

texas and florida

we look up into the orange ash haze

at the blood red sun almost hidden

at mountain ranges lost in the smog

at people taking pictures of this madness

we eat the food with storm surges

licking the tip of our tongues

twenty dead here

another thirty-five gone over there

while other tourists walk by us

to stand in line outside of the original starbucks

for rainbow sherbet frappuccinos

sucked down cold during these end times

we clean curry ketchup

off of our fingers

eat a last salty and greasy fry

drink that precious bottled water

breathe in the smoke

and grime into our tar-covered lungs

as the woman from utah tells someone else

to bear with her

bear with me, she says

looking up at the orange ash sky

because i just haven’t been right, honey

not right at all

today.