Jaywalkers

[Michael Anon]

    my comments in italics
Jaywalkers

I called my friend and slowly poured water
         on our evening plans until they
         fizzled out,
freeing me to go to in-n-out alone.
         Walking, because my parking spot
         was too good to lose.

At the patio table
with my burger and coffee,
Why the gap here?
I gazed at the
talented jaywalkers
         who might as well be raising
         their middle fingers to the cars–
                  a big I dare you–
as they took the street.

And I thought of you
and how, in the backseat of your car,
      I couldn't say I love you

and how this coffee,
         hidden shamefully in the bottom corner of
         the in-n-out menu,
tastes exactly like you'd expect    this line is either redundant or vague in a poem full of very precise and engaging detail

because by the time I'd thought to ask for cream
the cashier had already moved on to order 36.

This is a poem I reread with a certain fascination for its originality