a creation scene painted on the ceiling. he (adam, joe?) reaches out languidly, recumbent on a flocculent drift of brushstrokes that blow toward the restrooms as if by force of the godhead and the divine finger, er, finger looped through a coffeemug handle. his finger is as limp as the miniscule penis he is rendered to have. his body is doughy in the fashion of a shaven adult baby. he regards the divine coffee indifferently, although the tempestuous glare of the godhead indicates that this is no trifling gift. does he ever grasp the mug, drink of it, stand up from his cloud, stand up to be a man like the men who made him, or does he recline eternally languishing, flaking, falling into mugs of coffee and being fished out in fragments that patrons flick from their scalded fingertips onto the massive leathery couch, or the rigid wooden chairs, or the dining tables in line as though a sequence of kitchen stage flats were lifted into the flyloft and forgotten. he has been there this long, since this place was called sacred grounds.

he has watched cnn on the teevee all days and all nights. he has watched me come in intermittently, sit on one of the couches and drink soy lattes out of paper cups. he has read over my shoulder. he is the unevolved catalogue of my memories of joe’s. as i will do, he will not grasp the gift that is handed to him until it has evaporated or the godhead has taken offense at the squandered beverage he relentlessly foists. as i do, he will watch aimlessly the coffeeshop days turn to night in the streets of east atlanta, he will wonder about other coffeeshops and wonder when he will flake off and float away. he will idle away his nights disinterestedly, and like him i will not remember joe’s until it is a memory, but at least i took the cup and drank from it.

coffee, cafe, coffeeshop, review, café

Joe’s

510 Flat Shoals Avenue se
Atlanta, Georgia 30316