We are deep wells

We are deep wells. There is the here and the forever. I sit in a Coffee Shop, New Amsterdam, some techno playing. They boy behind the counter is joking in a loud pointed voice, some people you just want to see naked!, a young man has entered through the glass door, serious, a nicely trimmed goatee, a forward stare. This guy knows, the barista says, as dark hair approaches the counter. I am looking, he smiles, he looks at me, his dark eyes crinkle, we smile, somehow sharing an involuntary ripple of this surface, the joke darting and flowing from the barista into us and we receive. And I am struck in this smiling by how we share and how we do not. We smile and then I feel the depths of me that remain untouched, sitting bodily in this coffee shop of purple floors and painted walls. But we have shared a smile. I look over, now he sits again, serious, with the stare that no one can touch. But when he leaves he jokes with the baristas, the owner passing him in the glass door way salutes him by name, his face open and calm, they touch a bit more deeply maybe, do not just share a smile, but reach into a joint past as they pass, a shared deeper surface that I cannot see but perceive.