Hayes Valley Espresso

My watch says I have twenty-seven

minutes to spare and just then I

see a café, which is not such a miracle

in New York, every block has its

share, but this one makes me think of

time. I tell the barista with the chest tattoo

that says love I used to live in Hayes Valley,

which is sort of true but the truer truth

is that was where the kids went to school,

that first year we lived in San Francisco.

At Oak and Gough nestled in the heart

of Hayes Valley where parking was

impossible and expensive our mornings

were always adventures filled with time

to find free parking sometimes a mile

away. And on one particular morning

with time to spare and a caffeine

headache, we wandered down Gough

and started to feel the pull of chocolate

and caffeine down alleyway with a street

named for trees. We let the magnet

pull and joined the line at a kiosk

that looked like someone’s open

garage, except for the expensive metal

coffee machines and table where some

nursed their white recyclable cups.

And while the kids ate something

green and organic with an

unpronounceable name and I waited

what seemed like forever for my

coffee I got my first education in

pour over  and ethically sourced and

temperature having anything to do

with acidity. All I knew as I held that

warm coffee in my hands was the slipping

away of a headache and hard asphalt

seeming less hard and the chatter of

children and birds and close-by coffee

drinkers all sounding like Shostakovich.

And with smiles and warm bellies

and chocolate covered hands we sang

our way to school, and now twenty years

later, at Broadway and Walker, I sit.

Sipping my white demitasse with a blue

flower and reading a text my daughter

who just got into town and think of spare

time and the rush of caffeine and little

baby chocolate hands and that maybe

Einstein was right about time.