Flashback Café

Out the corner of a moist eye she spied despair
In a couple frenching the way she once had
With him at first blush of their spring affair,
Batting eyes and flashing smiles on stolen time.

Her lover's absence across the linen-draped setting
Glared like the minutes clicking panic into hours,
His specter as indelible as her red lipstick print
On the fourth drained shotglass of whiskey sour.

Limply exiting the café's revolving door,
She steadied wobbly legs on cracked concrete.
Starting tears merged with grayish downpour,
Emptying a heart of desire gone unreciprocated.

A flagging spirit conspiring with gravity
Weighed down her frame, her head descended
Like withered blooms on a neglected flower
Or crisp leaves on a teetering tree with roots upended.

Limerence slipped in when love dropped out of season,
A chameleon absorbing loneliness for the colorblind.
Once adoring eyes are awash with stinging reason,
Peering through the café glass at half-lives left behind.