“Eden” didn’t work out

In the café din
of clinking crockery
and espresso hisses

- with book and crossword -

we glugged away the hour
in slurps of coffee 
and delicious 
java wafts that drifted
round the folds

of Gogol’s Overcoat 
and my enigmatic newspaper clues.

He read, more and more, 
engrossed with each turn of a page

while I attempted to squeeze
words into boxes.

Until at length, I muttered, with frustration:  
“Eden” didn’t work out.

He nodded, empathetically,
and we laughed together, then . . .
as is our way.

notes:  It seems to me that almost every other crossword puzzle I do has "Eden" in it - the obvious clues, of course, but also references to the old Sitcom "I Dream of Jennie" and even __ Prairie, Minn.  Generally, I've found, that when it comes to crossword puzzles, at least, "Eden" does work out.  Smiles. 

The Overcoat, is a short story by Russian author Nikolai Gogol, published in 1842.  The story is open to many interpretations but it is agreed:  it inaugurated a new perception in which the underdog is treated as a human being with as much right to happiness as anybody else.   Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote:  We all come out from Gogol's Overcoat.
 
photos:  Coffee House – W. Bourke 

© 2014 Wendy Bourke