It’s difficult to meet you
in this coffee shop, because
at ten to nine tonight,
on the news between the news,
either you or I will be
dead, body found half in
the Grand River, just where
it intersects the Speed.

Can you consider how
your parents will react,
or mine as well, as they see
your or me splashed across
the vision of our city?

We’re agrarian and Mennonite
and slow progress through
the testicles of higher education.
On King Street, the construction
never ends; an answer is never
found for the malaise of
creeping urban sprawl.

We’re old school and old ways,
going to market every Saturday,
buying sausages and cheese.
And Sunday is family day,
the time to unwind while
winding up into tight bands.

It’s impossible to meet you
in this coffee shop on Monday
morning, when we go our own
ways, when we ignore
the potential of future.

What perseveres is the need for coffee,
the need to extend
our commonalities beyond this
moment, this event,
when we are gathered, not to
honour, but to be alive and live.

Forever beyond the moment.