Tonight, in the garish, invasive light
of a Starbucks, I sat, ridiculously conspicuous,
waiting for a woman who never showed up.
As I waited, blinding red, intermittent flashes
several feet away kept catching my eye
as a mirror might reflecting sunlight,
angled by someone far away,
lost in the desert, bleeding.
I’d never seen a red so red,
gleaming on the shelves like rounded,
blood-red mirrors freshly buffed
with a clean, cotton cloth till spotless.
They loomed like the complex,
all-seeing eyes of giant porcelain dragonflies,
motionless, cold, missing nothing.
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