On Not Writing in Cafes

an excerpt by Adrienne Su

for S. W.

It’s too much like sex in a car:
fine as a concept (everyone needs
to be seen at times by strangers),
but reality seldom agrees.

It’s clumsy. Whoever happens
along as you start to forget yourself
is not what you fancied – a relation,
a stranger you know too well.

The hand that isn’t holding the pen
flails like an animal pinned by a leg.
And the gorgeous epiphany, just then
at the tip of your tongue, has fled.