On the other side of the plate glass window,
they sipped coffee, chatted—her mother had a smoke—
relaxed finish to a Sunday morning breakfast
under the signature orange roof,
Howard Johnson’s, Biscayne Boulevard, Old Miami.
Bug-eyed, boxy cars parked at the curb, her space
just a strip of sidewalk, a little plot of St. Augustine grass
neatly mowed, and the predictable manicured shrubs
close to the window. It was good enough,
a watchful presence with space around it
for the little girl to play in. She forgot them,
alone with a bush that sported brilliant red seeds.
She plucked off a seed. Up close she could see
a shining black eye. With the preoccupation
of a scientist or an artist, she put the seed
between her teeth to see if she could crack it.
“Don’t eat that seed, little girl,” a voice
fractured her private world. “It’s poisonous.”
She stumbled indoors to her mother’s side—sobbing,
“That lady told me not to eat it. I wasn’t going to eat it,”
the red seed with the shining black eye still clutched
in her folded palm, which her mother gently opened.
“Did you eat the seed, chickadee?” “No, I just
wanted to see how hard it was.” “Then it’s okay.”
On the other side of the plate glass window,
the lady, her husband obediently behind,
got into the car and drove away.
But the fear stayed.
Not of the poison. It was the stranger’s voice
that followed the little girl out into the world,
in which Howard Johnson’s under the orange roof
would circle the globe, then go extinct.
