Poetry |

“Broken Coffee Break”

Broken Coffee Break

 

I stroll up to my favorite out-of-town coffee shop

and find it closed for good. Through the black glass,

a naked counter, stools scattered, space thrown open

to conjecture and rats, stillness, indifference.

I came here to sit in the shade of my deafness,

in the mingled business of being mortal, the push

on to the next moment, letter I meant to write

once each week for the past four months, knowing

I may not ever, even though the Asian Daisies

are blooming and the cool sheen of morning still

hangs in the air. What perishable milestones

we apprentices have for measuring anything.

Better to take the pulse of the sunlight falling

down over the mountains into the yards and alleys,

the Royal Palms and freeways, the perpetual

serpentine muscle of traffic sliding over the hills

into one’s own arroyo or canyon, place to pause

and collect, gather and climb back into

the ceaseless, moving and unmoving,

constant boa of motion. With fine gravelly

contractions of swallowing the delicate morsels

we make in the always and indescribable now.

Contributor
Roger Mitchell

Roger Mitchell’s latest book of poems is As Water Moves (Dos Madres, 2023). His work appears in numerous anthologies, most recently the Penguin anthology Zoo of the New, edited by Nick Laird and Don Patterson.

Posted in Poetry

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