Mercedes

Mercedes, that day working the cafe when you stepped on the floor with your apron flung over your arms and Paul was talking nonsense and Luke was at the machine and I was sucking down espresso as fast as my addiction would allow, that day when the Chai guy came in and you were like, "Look Erin, another American," and Lucy the Chef was in the back tossing tomatoes into salad bowls and Claire was polishing lipstick off silverware, and I'm like, "Mercedes, you know that place where you wake up and your life seems bigger?" and you said, "A dream?" but it's not a dream really when it stays in the pit of your gut like stains to a coffee cup and you know this land is only a boat to send you back home when that last shift comes and it's the two of us lying under a tree, staring at a sky of milky stars and a moon with a bright white face outside your apartment and the plane comes the next morning but the mistakes you've made, the places you've been, the people you love, you carry them with you, you leave them but you carry them with you and just like now on this rainy continent a million miles away it's still the cafe it's always the cafe.

—Erin Passons, 6-2013