Coffee with legs

Por Willie Perdomo

Foto por Laren Calderón Franco

These days, faithful to me dream-keeping habits, you can find me praying for something to believe in with both hands.   Last night, in my dream, Flaco calls me from the lobby at the inn.  Let’s go have coffee with legs, he says, I have a spell for you.  The night before I told him that street corners are good workshops: one good prompt and you die.  Death, he says through the receiver, I’m almost there. We ride a free bus and walk into a bar.  Afternoon in Calle San Sebastian and this is where businessmen like to have their two sugars.  We can only see neon versions of ourselves in black light.  My business used to be hanging out and minding my business. I said this somewhere, I just don’t remember where, but it’s the shortest way of saying that I’m always down for a lunchtime Bustelo. An army of blank ants soldier a shard of iceberg lettuce.  That’s what I want my poetry to be like, Flaco says, his teeth almost touching mine.  The bar is a capital T.  A woman in sunglasses stirs her cappuccino and nods her head to Tego.  Sing glasses, I say.  The curtain opens. Heels lead.   The dance can tell that I’m a new jack.  One ankle strap comes loose by her heel. I survey her knees for bruises.  I see what looks like a sloppy lightning rod once stitched below her belly button.  The dancer mashes and dips until she is swallowed by a velvet curtain.  You see, Flaco says, this is the workshop my friend.  We step out to the street.  A burst of light uses me to snap its fingers.  This is what it must feel like to grow in the dark.  Not only can we write the best love songs, Flaco says, but we can deliver poems and give birth to the sky before we go back to work.