Monday, June 06, 2005

Demitasse Cafe

On my WorldPhotoDay outing, I happened upon Demitasse Cafe on a part of lower Main Street in Poughkeepsie. It has a beautiful interior of rich wood, stamped-tin ceilings, books, attractively displayed collections of antique tea cups and, of course, a well-appointed coffee bar. Adjacent to the Albert Shahinian Fine Art Gallery, the Demitasse Cafe also plays host to local artists, displaying their art on the restaurant's walls. Out the back of the narrow restaurant there is an open-air patio cafe with umbrella'd tables and a huge, hand-painted mural. I haven't eaten there yet, but I made plans with a friend to give it a try. An ice tea on that back patio seems particularly inviting right about now, in today's 85degree heat.


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At a Sidewalk Cafe


An ordinary morning―
awakening to nothing but daylight
prodding through the eggshell-tinted blinds
and the warm quilts to be tossed back
in which sleepers all over the city
groan, burying themselves deeper
into the sheets of oblivion.

Downstairs, the sidewalk café beckons
with the daily choices to be made: trays
of napoleons, parfait glasses filled
with strawberry cream, and the two-sided list
of coffees that patrons pour over
in their passion: the golden warmth of hazelnut,
the richness of Colombian,
the full-bodied Java―
even that everyday flirtation with espresso
and its bittersweet aftertaste,
an attraction so innocuous it seems,
that I wonder what quirks of fate
endear us to our choices in the end―
however invariable the consequences.

-Joanne Monte




1 Comments:

At 10:41 AM, Blogger CarolynT said...

p.s. I visited Main Street in Poughkeepsie recently, and the Demitasse Cafe appears to have closed. Note didn't say why. Lovely mural outback...not sure what will become of it...

 

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