NOT OF THIS WORLD

She is walking into a café-bar.

The lights illuminate the bottles

Within. Behind the counter a

Woman moves from place to place.

Men, tired from a night of sitting

And standing, lean against the

Counter. Their eyes are peeled

Off of them, on to the surfaces

Surrounding. Sometimes they

Rest upon the woman but never

For long for she is moving

Always moving from place to

Place and so must they.



In broken words the foreign woman is

Asking for two coffees to

Take away. Between the

Words which are only

Just about received there

Is a sluggishness as if the

Air is caught in the fluorescence

Of the lights and sent

Turning around on itself. The men

Are watching the episode

With the foreign woman

The woman who neither looks nor

Looks away but stares through

The bottles to another world.



A song starts up on the radio.

It is a blues number and the

High energy

Of intense concentration

On nothing is dropped.



Eyes come down, re-enter bodies. Postures relax. The woman,

Forgetting for a moment, orders

Coffee rapidly in her own

Language. The air cracks

And bubbles and it is the

beginnings of a joke.

Motion gets more real as

People let go of one another,

Stand back and rest.



The woman behind the bar offers

Up the two coffees, two cakes

Which she wraps and seals,

Sachets of sugar and two tiny plastic

Spoons which even these she wraps. It causes the foreign

Woman to smile at this.

There is the beginning of something in the air. Then the door

Opens and in walks a young

Boy in uniform. The woman

Turns rapidly, rings up the

Price on the till which appears florescent red. Faces

Disappear. Only the staring

Eyes remain. The foreign

Woman leaves, carrying one

Coffee in either hand. The cakes she tucks into her

Blouse. She tip toes through the

station, stopped by no one.

For already she has floated on.

Floated onto some other place.