Companion poem for chapter 13 of the R.M. Dolin novel, "Trophic Cascade"
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Strangers pass at a hurried pace
on their way to somewhere they’re known
I sit at my sidewalk café alone
with nowhere to go.
At least I have equations
and problems needing to be solved,
along with ghosts of all the others
who long ago sat alone.
I see her first as a vision
because she can't be real,
then as a portrait too beautiful
to be concealed.
She vanishes down
the sidewalk of my lonely café,
disappearing like a memory
obscured by all the reasons ghosts stay at bay.
Then there she is,
asking to borrow a chair,
if it'd be okay to take café
beside me in the warm spring air.
We sit like future lovers
afraid to say we need more,
too timid for the idleness of words
and whatever you come to lonely sidewalk cafés for
Tu me manques,
mon amour.
From the R.M. Dolin novel, “Trophic Cascade.” Jake reminisces about how he felt the day he first meets Emelia at a sidewalk café in Paris. Written on February 19, 2025.
“Tu me manques,” pronounced “to-mu-monk,” is French for “you are missed,” or “I miss you.”
