The grandmother

And with disdain on her eyes
the grandmother viewed her granddaughter's friends.

The grandmother turned around and said to her son,
If you father was alive to see this, his blood would boil.

The son proceeded to invite his mother,
If you feel this strong about your granddaughter's friends,
you can well tell her in your own words.

The son asked his mother:
Would you like to have two people of the same race
be together, who can't stand each other, be together,
just for the sake of a sham public appearance?
Or would you prefer, two people of different races,
creeds, who make each other happy and are genuine,
with their intentions?

The mother was still bothered that her granddaughter
had friends who were on the exterior much different.
It's not easy to change views after more than seventy years,
a whole life with this incomprehension.

The Coffee Shop, Union Square

A place that has been there forever,
in New York terms,
but that for whatever reason, never gone in,
until yesterday -
it must've been the desire to sit and eat.
 
Upon our entrance,
a gruff-looking man on a stool sang Brazilian tunes,
to a distracted clientele and poor acoustics.
These are new times to me,
where people talk to each other,
and text to others in ether land.
 
Hey, pay attention to me,
I'm talking to you,
and would like this conversation to be more,
than a single-serve tennis volley.
 
I was drawn into the large, freshly inked, tattoo
of the young waitress on her left arm,
HOME SICK.
 
Was she really home sick or sick of home?
Why did she leave home? From where?
Why can't she go back? Too far? No one home?
I was also drawn into other tattoos
right above her right knee,
which I couldn't read fast enough
without getting my eyes caught.
 
The waitress's printed name on the receipt
read "Sunny".
Was she? Is she? Will she ever be sunny?

I kept thinking of how much
I was drawn into her tattoo.