With the giant sign at the counter
Vegan is the True Mark of Peace,
Where We Reserve the Right,
Another sign advises, to Refuse Service
To Anyone, and I soon see why
As, oblivious to another sign,
No Public Bathrooms. No Exceptions.
A young man who might as well be a projection
Built just for me rolls, skateboard in hand, in,
So much like my late, lamented step-son
In some later comeuppance he is,
And asks to use the restroom, but immediately
Adds he's only a skater, not homeless.
The Vietnamese woman at the counter,
Whose desserts are to die for, freezes
In a terrified stare, and a guy at a table, exhausted,
Drinking coffee, pulls up his chair
And takes over for her, for it's apparent to me,
The only observer, that he is her partner
For the sake of this play. "Can't you read the sign?"
He calmly asks, knowing what comes next
Exactly, as the skater in apparent need of a pee says
"Oh, is it because I am brown?"
"I am brown too," he wearily replies, more brown,
In fact, than the skater, who is, ding, again
Like my step-son, a very white half-Mexican.
"Can I speak to the Manager?
You're serving a Racist as a customer."
"No, he is the manager," the lady reported.
"Then you have a racist owner!" he gleefully declared,
And demanded anew his seat at the urinal.
A typically rational and normal human being would,
At this juncture, helpfully point out
"You should have gone with being discriminated against
Because you can't read besides you're white as fuck."
But I was not, deep in my pho, about to take that bait,
Besides I sincerely wanted to know what to say
To the daily barrage of aggrieved entitlement I'd only lately
Escaped. It was not the way of the counter woman either:
"We only want peace." So she broke every code to call his bluff
And agreed, if he bought something, he could pee.
He nervously grabbed a coconut water, as if it would give him
The balls to continue his lunch-counter tirade.
"Do you want to pee or what? We don't want to fight you."
So the dessert lady says all that needs to be said
And he shuffles like a point guard deciding on his next
Deception, puts the drink down and leaves.
In the end, nothing was said. The Asian shopkeeper's curse
Was too usual to warrant retrospection at all.
But the cause of peace was somehow furthered
By saying nothing. Throw empathy and logic
As far away as they can go, and all you see are
The stars upon the suddenly alive waters.
