Café Du Monde

To sit in the hottest part

of a hot summer’s day

in the most crowded part

of a touristed city

in the busiest establishment

on the busiest street

with the most taciturn waiters

in the world (outside of Paris)

to allow powdered sugar

to spill upon your clothes

to permit hot fried dough

to pass through your lips

to accept hot coffee
and chicory

with steamed milk

to seriously scald your tongue

while the river flows

behind you and above you

and history wraps around you

and inside you and through you

and the accents convince you

you are French, Spanish, African,

British, Creole, American, Irish,

Italian, Vietnamese and

Brooklynesque, Ninth Ward

and Garden District, a culture

and cuisine gumboed and

served on white rice,

is something akin

to perfection.

So the January poetry prompt at TweetSpeak Poetry is coffee and tea, and what better coffee than café au lait at Café Du Monde in New Orleans?

This poem is also submitted for Open Mike Night at dVerse Poets. To see other submitted poems, please visit the site – the links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time today.

Thinking about café au lait and beignets, I think I have just undone myself.