It's raining in downtown New Orleans
I can hear the drops beating
beating on my office glass
I look up from my screen
through rivulets I can see people in
raincoats
umbrellas
jackets
hurrying with
newspapers over their heads
Their own businesses worth more than my business.
Alex and I run to the corner
the coffeeshop's promised warmth
tea, soup, coffee, people and chess
his electric blue windbreaker
my wet cotton shirt
I have hot hibiscus tea
light sugar
tuna on wheat with sprouts and swiss
This window shows our streetcars
electrical showers of sparks in the rain
one coffeegirl with the communist tatoo talks jazz
nobody mentions the chemical scar
I swallow my sandwich and cross the tracks
buisnesses are hermit crabs,
the antebellum cotton building with the modern bank
shadows industries invented in the last five years
looking up into the past gets rain in my eyes
I put my sunglasses back on.