wine with my cheese

After work I went wine tasting with a friend. A local cheese shop supplied its signature macaroni and cheese dish in small white cups. I bought a bottle of wine, Sangiovese, and missed my bus, or rather, was early for the next/last one.

As I waited to cross the street and buy lumpia for the long wait home, a young man said to me, "You are the beacon. You are the light." I said, "What?" He repeated it. He wore headphones and a blue hooded sweatshirt loose and cool over faded blue jeans. I laughed and looked away. He shook his head, "But you don't believe me..."

I stepped into the diner and ordered To Go. As I sat on one of the red vinyl stools and waited I looked around in my contented fuzzy awareness. Paper signs on the wall said, "Minimum $2 order per person." Fake dark wood counters, looked as if they were covered in contact paper. Bathroom doors with their keys on long wooden dowels, the back of the restaurant a Money Gram store. And to my right, a small bar, no more than a closet, with neon lights reflected against the liquor bottles. The waitress set a paper bag in front of me and slid the styrofoam box of lumpia in sideways. I went back to the bus stop and ate with traffic as my candlelight and a sack for a tablecloth.

The sun was out all day today. Looking out from my skyscraper windows, the city looked sleepy, like it was rubbing its eyes and stretching. All that bright light so out of place and strange, but tolerated.