Mississippi Blues

Pieces of Mississippi

She's sitting there on the stone steps with her coffee and cigarette, as morning dawns all around her. Here I come walking up the street in the cold, nothing better to do but walk and think. It's been a sleepless night and I can't stand to simply stay still and fret anymore. From this distance I can see the blank stare and the bleary eyes of a hangover. A strong breeze whips leaves into a frenzy around my feet and I pull my jacket a little closer. I'm drawing nearer now and I see her flick a strand of auburn hair back from her face and take a drag. Smoke drifts lazily from between her lips and lends an acrid tang to the foggy gray morning. She's wearing a baggy black shirt, a ragged pair of jeans, and the weight of the world. Sip. Drag. Exhale. I'm closer now, close enough to smell coffee and cigarettes mingling, close enough to taste the disconnect. I see the lines on her face and the chipped paint on her toenails. Sip. Drag. Exhale. As I pass by, under the shadowed canopy of magnolia trees, I try to catch her eye with a smile. I try to convey in seconds, with a look, that I understand. I too have battled the loneliness of the morning after. The Mississippi Blues. For a moment, it's just the two of us on this empty sleeping street. But she doesn't look up. I keep walking, kicking leaves down the jagged sidewalk, lost in my own thoughts once more.