at the cheese counter.

a pale face pokes from 'round a man's hip
and smiles into a display case of cheeses.
her mother is gabbing at the counter with a friend,
her back towards the girl with whom i'm
sharing funny faces.
as if suddenly aware of motherhood,
the woman grabs the child, the man steps
out of line and ahead of her,
but she continues ordering cheeses
one wedge at a time.
the dark haired lisping warhol scholar
tells her they're out of her choice of brie,
but she's talking now of wine,
he mentions something offhand about 2012,
her child is nowhere to be seen. she huffs
then stutters some french name that
he repeats with ease, hands her the wedge
and then looks at me.
i ask for a quarter pound of 'moody blue.'
and we complete our exchange silently
and prompt.
i salute him with the cheese to my brow saying,
"here's to the apocolypse, eh?"
he says,
"may he have mercy on us all."