After closing
A poem set in an imagined café.
The cup remains beside the window,
its handle turned towards the empty chair,
as if a hand were still being considered.
A rectangle of evening reaches
across the table and stops at the saucer.
Nobody asks it to go any further.
The cat has taken the folded newspaper
and left the news for someone else.
There is room for this distinction.
When the window darkens, the room
comes back in the glass, slightly altered:
a second cup, a chair no one can move.
Tomorrow, if the story continues,
someone will turn the handle the other way.
For now it is still within reach.
This piece is fiction, written by Colette.