The barista snickers.

He’s been pulling

on his beard for an hour

looking at infinite

varieties of coffee

beans harvested

from sides of mountains

he’s seen in dreams.

She’s pretty sure

he stumbled into

a teen chat room,

mystified by encoded

banter. When she

comes by to offer

a refill, he deftly

scrambles with the two-

button mouse to rid

his screen of

pornography and

get back to CNN.

He plays a game

of Texas Hold ’em

under the pseudonym

Nostradamus and snorts

when he gets a bad

beat on the river.

Predictably, he’s stalled

on a Home Depot ad

for fertilizer,

meditates on the too-

green grass of 32

bit color quality.