I woke up with cave man hair today,

matted, too much hairspray,

too much Friday.

We sat in the restaurant eating

Mexican food, drinking coke until

late.

Talking and talking.

Mostly me jabbering on about the

details of my incredibly interesting life,

he and she eating and listening.

He described her as five feet nothing,

one hundred pounds.

He is tall and skinny, all angles and bones, big nose.

Brown eyes, but wary.

Her eyes are dark and bright, often,

feverously intense.

A mop of curly dark brown hair circles

her pale, pixie face, young but old.

Old beyond her years and sad with a sadness

so deep no therapy can reach.

Orphaned early in life she has found him,

with his losses, more physic than real.

They cling to each other furiously and offer

me hope.

Hope as I watch my old friendships

like multi-colored, candy castles,

dissolve under the hot water that is

age and life.

Watch those people sicken and die or

get crazier with time.

They sit and listen and tell me of their

future and I feel the promise

of untried tomorrows.

They are a gift to me in this café,

babbling away about art and writing and

people.

We talk about tomorrow until the wee hours.

We are friends and I give them something they

have lost or never had.

They give me tomorrow.