Claude’s* the one I look for weekly.
Big, sunburned, hair askew, taciturn.
I strain to hear his mumbled menu:
“coffee”
“what kind of soup?”
“ham-and-cheese”
—just that.
Prefers his coffee black.
Otherwise silent,
his bulk gentles the parking lot
where he squats,
a lump in nylon sleeping shell.
Once he unleashed a string of words—
soft technobabble all disjointed.
But mostly mute
until today:
 I see him point to me and murmur,
“I want him to serve my soup.”  

*Not his real name