The Early Morning Starbucks Writer

that guy in the brown
cap and plaid shirt?
with the beeper
on his belt and going grey?
yeah, he's a writer.

i know because
i see a word document open on his laptop and what looks
like the structure of a poem, and he's staring out of the window
but not really seeing anything, and occassionally he stops to tap
his fingers on his leg, as though trying to decide what witty metaphor
to construct next, and then he'll type a word or two, and then highlight
what he's just written and read it over -- once for typos, twice to decide
whether it makes sense, and a third to realize he doesn't like it, and then
he deletes it and tries again and that's the process of writing: staring, tapping
writing and reading and deleting until finally, either out of defeat or satisfaction,
something
sticks.