A Change in Direction

The bookstore's china windows
lit the cobbled street in front.
Two large men wearing
identical colored jackets,
puffy and quilted,
walked from the store.

They moved
across the small square passing
on either side of the rearing horse
and disappeared into an unseen
alley immediately to my right.

They looked solemn, sad even.

They reappeared minutes later,
from this small side street,
animated, laughing,
knocking into one another
as if at the end of that street
they found something astonishing,
an elixir,
a paying slot,
a bag of winter weed,
or a change in direction