Clouds in your coffee

The tower was seventy-eight storeys, each with a
glass ceiling.
Rebecca's office was on the seventy-nineth.
Ashraf was a barista in the concession on the atrium
mezzanine.

"Skinny latte, Rican roast, vanilla shot?"
"Thank you, Ashraf "

Toby was a lazy climber. Daddy bought colleagues like rungs.
At his desk, the physio massaged Toby's craning neck.

"Cappuccino, cinnamon dust?"
"Hurry up, man!"

A plot was stirring.
A sense of entitlement sweetened by complacency,
discretion puffed in an air-head of milk-foam.

The lift stopped on thirty-nine.
An orange crate with Toby's name, in gold:
security to see him down and out.

On exit, the mezzanine was silent;
then someone smashed a glass,
fragments rained like cinnamon dust.

It's often the smallest things.

"Skinny latte, Rican roast, vanilla shot?"
"Thank you, husband."


With thanks to Carly Simon. 

(c) Andrew Halsall Smith, 2018