Watching from a Coffee Table at the Mall

The escalator corkscrews through the floors  
of the mall, people spill onto my level,  
coffee in hand, I watch dramas on slow legs,  
 
tangled thoughts moving about, the cheery  
memories leak as smiles, the bothering  
as knotted brows and barks at clerks,  
 
I can read what is in their hunches  
as they radiate from the escalator,  
I can see the stories in their ambling.  
 
A woman slaps the hand of her man away,  
tonight's fight will cost dearly, watch,  
you can hear what is unsaid.  
 
That man who sees no farther than a meter  
ahead of his stride, I am he already,  
charged by a thought, a task, lips move,  
 
he will not glance at the stores lining the mall,  
His footfalls do not proclaim his whereabouts,  
Is he supposed to be here at all?  
 
They are not other people, but we,  
in other people's strides and frowns.  
I watch him walk away, I worry.