Seattle Sestina

Seattle's Summer Sestina

Construction cracked concrete as black as this morning's coffee
glistens with ripples from footsteps and reflections of the buildings,
bustling with traffic in Central Seattle.
Few try to escape, but most embrace the mundane drizzle.
As locals saunter to work, tourists unsheathe their umbrellas,
standing out in neon colors against the pavement gray.

Starbucks hands out lattes, macchiatos, and Earl Gray,
but the hour-long queue is no match for local coffee
hangouts-decorated in simplicity and vintage umbrellas,
they lay disguised between historic buildings.
No coziness compares to a steaming chai when skies drizzle,
while students take refuge in bookstores in Capitol Hill, Seattle.

Young honeymooners admire Seattle's
greatest treasures before dinner, her slinky gray
cocktail dress almost as tempting as the espresso drizzle
on top of the tiramisu-lady fingers soaked in coffee.
They dine in the corner booth of a faded brick building,
glancing out the window at the silhouettes and their umbrellas.

Chilled by the sea breeze and sheltered by umbrellas
of awnings and tents, the Public Market-the pride of Seattle-
crowds craftsmen with florists and fishmongers in one long building.
Vivid signs of neon mark the local salmon and pike, their gray
limp figures flying from hand to hand. Vendors sip earthy coffee
while they sell to foreign crowds drawn inside by the drizzle.

The same iconic photographs of the landmarks in the drizzle
hang next to the same tacky golf umbrellas
in every souvenir store. Visitors send relatives local coffee
and well wishes from fifty-cent postcards of Seattle
in colors you'll never find in the city. No gray,
just pink skies and blue seas and bright brick red buildings.

But beneath the facade of hipster-vintage buildings,
and the infamous, never dying drizzle,
are the faces of the urban jungle who camouflage into the gray.
You won't find them in the market or under an umbrella.
Instead, look a little harder into the heart of Seattle,
oast the clouds and the Sound and the coffee.

Look between the bricks and beyond the gravel of gray buildings.
Taste the mountains in the coffee and hear the Pacific in the drizzle.
Fold away the umbrellas and just maybe you'll start to see Seattle.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

I loved Seattle. I did a lot of training at Fort Lewis.
"Instead, look a little harder into the heart of Seattle,
oast the clouds and the Sound and the coffee."
The small city had a little of everything. Thank you for sharing the excellent poetry dear Poet.
Coyote