Sitting in a cafe, drinking my daily americano.
I search for the familiar faces I’ve seen all my life.
The Waterstones café bears no resemblance.
I thought I saw Priscilla from Quinsigamond,
and that girl (Angela?)
who I always walked the track with.
I’m desperate to know the community
that does not belong to me. My recognition
Of faces was ample back home,
non-existent in this small café,
in a royal borough. Completely anonymous,
completely alone, facing the life, I entail.
A life of knowing that the girl sitting across
from me lost all her belongings in a fire,
the girl next to her slut-shamed
for sleeping with half the football team
(though really it was only two guys).
Mom always says we Gannons are just nosy.
Always in others’ business—but what am I
Supposed to say in response to finding out
Billy died in the woods behind my grandparents’
barn from hypothermia? “I thought I saw the girl
Who used to work at the pizza shop in
Northborough crossing, but it wasn’t her.”
When will that ache go away?
When will I see the face of that waitress out
of the corner of my eye again?