Winnings, 4:30pm During Desert Monsoon

July in Albuquerque the sky opens up its mouth
and screams.
It is pouring here and the windows of the coffee shop are rattling.
I listen to radha radha sham,
Radha govinda kee jai jai jai
Inside the coffee shop, people around me read books I recognize
the titles of. This place, along with my lover’s bed, and the park I run around,
are the cocoons of my lovely existence.
I come here to buzz on coffee and listen.
I watch a good-little-eater of a child with wet hair from the rain outside, she has
a blue bandana around her neck and a pacifier in her mouth. It is the last sign
of her babyhood. Her father has a shaved head and a bushy mustache and goatee.
He has a biker’s chain and goes to the counter and his daughter comes back
with a chocolate cookie in her mouth.
Most people are more stalwart in the fight for their freedom, then in commitment.
Our children end up being the chest staples that hold together our broken hearts,
and our kids believe this-is-just-the-way-it-is.
Others here grapple within their transitioning romantic relationships.
I see them share stories over coffee, and then go outside to laugh in the rain.
When men talk under the awning and smoke cigarettes
they look as if they are discussing the exact angles in which the world spins.
The children of single parents with tattoos and ripped jeans wander around,
finished with their organic juice and cookies.
They hide under tables with the dirt of yesterday’s boots. There should be a place for everyone.
A place that is not home, but feels the way a home should.
Still I listen.
It is hard for me to be alone with my mistakes.
I go from 0 to 10, a true racecar when I anger, and although it is seldom,
It is a backhoe in the vegetable patch of my relationship.
Is this something that singing radha radha sham can change?
I pray that compassion files down my sharp nail.
All of them.
Kirtan is my savior.
So is this time well spent in the coffee shop.
The muse of the gritty coffeehouse shows me my fault lines and I imagine others too,
go through the same tunnel of etching their stories onto the cave walls,
and then try to make sense of them.

We sit around and sip the great bean juice. Some take off their shoes and sit
cross-legged on their seats and stare into their laptops,
and others just sit and listen to the downpour.