Outside there’s a girl sitting at a small coffee shop table. Across from her sits a boy. An important boy. He’s reading and she’s typing. Flip. Flip. Tap. Flip. Tap. After a few minutes she looks up to make sure he’s still there. He is.
Snap.
“Got it,” I see him mouth. His head leans forward inspecting the picture he just took. He looks up and grins. She smiles, not bothered, accustomed to being the subject in the frame of his camera. Her eyes return to her laptop, fingers tapping the keyboard again.
He keeps gazing at her. He says something. She looks up, eyes wide. She says three words and spins around the table, landing in his lap. His arms catching her waist. Her ankles crossed rocking from side to side. They are in a kind of rapture, via wavelengths, lightning, shocks, softness.
I’m inside looking out on this from my table. It’s such a private moment. I should turn my head but I don’t. I watch instead.
She’s dancing. Really. On the sidewalk in front of him. Her silk floral dress billows around her body. Between the skirt and boots are long legs and pink knobby knees in hiking boots that swallow her feet.
Love is its own flash mob.
– paris / art by david hockney
Monks & Mannequins 