Girl From the Vegan Café

Girl From the Vegan Café  
      
Sinatra diner for vegan gumbo okra blues
Where waitress floats on scarlet pigtails
For holy salad days of youth
In checkered britches
A Bauhaus Bolshevik
With nose rings
Whose golden bands are nuptial dreams

She gazes at my ancient visage
Like Alice from a foxhole
As she grooves to the Latina
On the radio  
Whose Mexican vibes
She remembers like the barrio dusk
Where the taquería sold tofu tacos
For two dollars a piece
And Pachucas counted chili peppers
While the zoot suits smiled like children
As she read the newspaper

But this café is her cabaret
Where Satchmo lives and breathes again
To serenade her with la vie en rose
When closing time approaches
And she emerges from the Diego Rivera mural
Of this café scene
Onto the street
Where angelic hobos dream
Like in the Teotihuacan dusk
Where a transcendental pyramid
Of flowered time awaits
In a Mayan calendar
When dreams rise like incense smoke
Of an ancient memory