In sunlight in the coffee shop she is drinking iced coffee, eating pastry with a fork, looking at her phone. A thick journal with a deep red leather cover is next to a paperback book. I can’t see the title. To her right is a colorful spiral bound notebook. Like me she has several books. Her gray backpack sits in a yellow chair. She’s wearing black Ecco sandals, pale-blue blue jeans. Her printed top, gathered under her breast, has a scoop neckline. Brown glasses, her hair, pulled back in a ponytail, is held with a gray scrunchy. Her complexion is soft and smooth. She reminds me of me.

watching life pass by
purity slowly transforms
determined and old

She has walks out carrying her phone. Through the glass window I see her pass out of view, then returns, opens the leather journal and begins to write. She reminds me of me only I walk like an old woman. With clear skin, soft and pristine, she has her whole life ahead of her unlike the woman in the courtroom earlier—several felonies and six trips to the ER after suicide attempts, ruddy complexion, streaked, bleached hair, strong jaw. She could have once been the girl at the yellow table in the coffee shop, writing before the spiral began down into the maya of matter impossible to contain. The judge in the high seat with a fake soft concerned voice cannot understand why she cannot get it together. She might have one day been holy and pure. The girl sitting in the yellow chair is gone. The table empty.  No lovely journals or paperback.

come of age, I write
watch the innocence of youth
a slow transition

Another woman sits in the sunlight, older, her skin rough, her body thicker. She wears a fuchsia hoodie, her jeans well-worn. There are no soft journals. she wears black tennis shoes. Types on a black laptop. Her cell phone, coffee cup, briefcase, black. Sunglasses perched on her hair pulled back, black. She types with determined fingers. Her pen, red and black, sits in high contrast on the yellow table. She too reminds me of me in the coffee shop drinking latte, writing.

sidewalk in the rain
becomes a glass reflection
in the window streaked