Tea, Spices and Milk

And I was sitting at the Starbucks

on that busy Parisian boulevard

full of honks and delivery trucks

when nothing but the roads is barred,

my chai tea latte steaming my glasses up

'Cuthbert' warily scribbled on the cup.

And I watched that student

through the window

rushing across the street,

and that old widow

overly prudent,

and that ragged beat

limping his way unashamed

to his morning flagon of red,

amid the wet morning crowd

and suddenly thought how

we're supposed to be all

genetically identical,

and how quantum physics state

that all actions reverberate

into different frames of space and time.

And I thought that we might be

the echoes of a single, one-time

action sparked a long time ago,

and that all the possibilities

contained therein did grow,

fractaled in us in fulfilled probabilities

and which, detail after detail,

changed in each individual's tale

to give one complete set of turbulences,

yet one coherent whole,

all paralleled universes

crushed flat into one huge cinnamon roll.

And the thought made me heave such a sigh

that my napkin just flew over the tray

and off the table down on the ground to lie.

The pretty girl went her way,

the old widow cautiously hers,

amid the habitual city-wonders

and the old sot went with the flux

and I was sat at the Starbucks.