coffee

black, hot, bitter coffee

my life long companion

weak and bubbling left in the Pyrex pot

renewed all day and into the night

always there

heavy, white cafe mugs

cream and sugar

tobacco and endless talk

about nothing now remembered

~

the Black Brick

a garage made into a black light coffee house

chess boards, abstract oils hanging

jazz, heady espressos

~

two-gallon coffee pot lashed to the bulkhead

pegboard full of hanging plastic mugs

dispensing foul, thick long brewed coffee

to the mid watch

~

café solo served with bare cubes of rough brown sugar

or maybe cut with a touch of local milk

Celtas, a foreign tobacco

it’s aroma mixing with that of the coffee

forever a part of Spain

~

the sun was rising

i was ten years old

“your dad likes coffee. i suppose you do too,” my grandfather said

dumping a handful of cheap coffee

into a boiling beat up pot on the stove

later i was to have worse

but remember them less

~

now i use good coffee from brown bags

carefully filtered into a favorite mug

i drink it pure in the mornings

while i write about the things

that come to me

9/18 LV
Copyright Michael Douglas Scott