Friday night at the chai lounge

and the bongo band packed up and hit the Ave leaving the barrista-fueled crazed audience on its own with the poets who grabbed the microphone (is anyone using this -- is this thing on -- can you hear me) from the bedtime storyteller who almost had the kids asleep before Father came home smoking and reeking of beer -- again -- causing the storyteller to skip ahead in the story to address the audience who was reading fiction and carving initials in treebark tabletops and now the poets distracted taking down each other's phone numbers and so it goes ...

Mummies

wrapped in the smoke of cigarettes walk the streets of Broadway where curtains are pulled back and fans blow on high. Mummies drink wine to a city paralyzed at 27 degrees. Mummies can't get a taxi. Mummies find the runway to be long on going nowhere. Mummies gather in the public space of public buildings mill around until Robert's Rules of Order send a gavel crashing to the table and things unravel into a snowy pile of guaze.

In preparation

for the potluck he would buy a bag of cubed ice and mixers -- 7-UP, Tonic, Club Soda, Coca-Cola, Orange Juice. He would also remember at the last minute lemons and limes. He wondered what pairings, what conversations, would result from the mixings -- what squeezings, what wonderful concoctions ...