So, all is well on the Starbucks front. It's really not a bad job, with great people and great benefits and all that, and all the punching buttons and all the steamed milk and all the coffee knowledge from Central America to Indonesia and sometimes I wish I could sit back and watch myself and my green apron, and I would live just behind this Starbucks smile and credit cards and thank yous, and I would leave a space (about an inch and a half - one inch for them and half for me), and the air would be stiff there and it would be like insulation for my quietness and insecurity and my smile could be smuged off with a paper towel and basic-H and I could see it from the inside while bombs rage under the North Korean earth, while my dog poops in the house, while my cousin is injured in Iraq, and while I forget how many pumps of syrup they want.

Inside there is silence.
And echos of confidence falling
Through the foam of screaming
steam scalding
the milk of the flowing
bodies of consumers...

and my hands they drink
and ask for refills.