It rains most days outside the Sappho Café.

Inside the counterman serves petal pink ham,
sunny side up eggs, white toast triangles,
coffee, to soggy men in plaid flannel shirts.

Pulling a green wool cap over his black curls,
running out front, a man fills a tank with gasoline.
That morning, requiring neither food nor gasoline,

Walking inside, I saw, thumbtacked to the wall, an
emerald green shirt, ornamented with a Greek poet,
She wove her dance through the Delphic columns.

I purchased three shirts and left. Many cars pass
through Sappho. Few stay at the café nor at the
turquoise trailer behind. No other structures stand

In the town of Sappho, existing and celebrating a fork
on Route 101, diverges there with Route 112 traveling
northwest to Port Neah. There archaeologists and

Makah Indians excavated, restored a fifteenth century
village, thus, uncovering a cedar bark technology,
blankets of bark interlaced with crimson woodpecker

Feathers, russet dog hairs, cedar utensils, richly
carved with men-in-shells, owls, whales, canoes.
On the established road, continuing in semi-circular

Fashion— southwest, then east to the Hoh Rain forest.
Ferns as tall as ten-year-olds grow. Their elders, Sitka spruce, shoot up skywards, yet their branches laden with

Venerable moss, lean to whisper — even to drip — a lattice of advice. I have traveled both roads. Only once did I stop at the Sappho Café.

I cannot say when I’ll return.