Coffee, Anyone?Espresso with Cream at Café Prückel

Your Choice
Single red Zinnia
to the left


or single red Zinnia
to the right
of your reading lamp


Having a hard time
deciding which side your zinnia should lean to?
No problem, simply sit down
and enjoy the view of an orchestra's
worth of flowers on top of the
glass vetrine with the sweet
t e m p t a t i o n s


and order your
espresso with cream
on the side


Select a newspaper
or three or a magazine,
but feel also free to read
your own book
from cover to cover


Your waiter will let you get lost
on your island
between the lines,
as lost as you allow yourself to become,
because everything stands still while you read
or contemplate or create in the far corners
of your mind.
Time does not exist here,
no waiter will nudge you to consume more,
and if it takes you a hundred years
to finish your thought or your book,
he will still be there -
he has been for 110 years so far -
and he will be there to serve you,
as soon as you lift your hand,
for more coffee or the bill,
"Herr Ober, zahlen bitte!"

*

Photographed in the late afternoon
of Wednesday, 12 May 2010,
at one of the famous Viennese Ringstrassen Cafés,
Café Prückel, founded in 1904
Corner of Wollzeile and Stubenring

Images and Text © by Merisi