Cool Beans Cafe

The white envelope mountains
are growing daily,
each begging to be opened

and returned with a check
of money from our pile
that has eroded away.

The customers don’t come in here as often
as they did before the convergence of companies
gave way to Starbucks

and even our regulars

(who previously had no sense of a premium bean)
are telling me that they prefer the over-roasted beans

to our quality Columbian blend.
My father opened this place in 1955
before coffee houses were popular

with beat poets
(who have also found better publicity
in a standardized booth with Styrofoam cups

and corporate napkins)

and he managed to keep it alive through the health kick
of the 1980’s, even the disco era of the 1970’s,

but I am slowly losing my grasp on the rope;
my rock-climbing days are numbered.
The manager of the bookshop next door

offered to buy me out
as though he could simply buy my past
like a decaf (with 1 cream, 2 sugars, the way he likes it)

but the phone company has us disconnected
and the electric company won’t accept payment
in coupons for a free frappe…