Watching from a Coffee Table at the Mall

By Vincent R. Pozon

The escalator corkscrews through the floors
of the mall, people spill onto my level,
coffee in hand, I watch dramas on slow legs

tangled thoughts moving about, the cheery
memories leak as smiles, the bothering
as knotted brows and barks at clerks

I can read what is in their haunches
as they radiate from the escalator,
I can see the stories in their ambling.

A woman slaps the hand of her man away,
tonight's fight will cost dearly, watch,
you can hear what is unsaid.

That man who sees no farther than a meter
ahead of his stride, I am he already,
charged by a thought, a task, lips move,

he will not glance at the stores lining the mall,
his footfalls do not proclaim his whereabouts,
is he supposed to be here at all?

They are not other people, but we,
in other people's strides and frowns.
I watch him walk away, I worry.