Hippie Squared: Coffee

Coffee

.

by Jeff Rogers and Scott Roat

Black and silver spools,
an uncoiling ribbon,
architecture of feverish reveries
built on bricks of beans;
an egg, blue, sliding across the plate,
a slick track of oil collects at the lip;
wash it away with coffee, holy coffee,
energy oil, tincture of high wire nerves;
the sleepy reason, as clouds part,
releasing Gothic sunshine curves
as the first drop uncoils
from the black spool, warming my mouth;
illusion of time returns uncoiling
in a black and silver morning stretch;
the crisp skin of bacon, overcooked,
crumbles its brittle bones between my teeth;
membrane of egg peeled back from plate,
slivers of crunch potato, tears of crunch bread;
thin dollops of purple jam crease the corners
of my mouth; all to bed the stream
for black and silver baptism, all for steam
and rush of holy bean distilled: a gemstone,
a black diamond in the center of the plate,
unconscionably large, black, and unashamed,
sacred tincture between earth and sky,
ageless compression of the holy bean;
balm for the weary, prop for the weak,
mediator for disputes of philosophers,
centerpiece at the peace table,
shameless bean carry me off to breakfast,
where I swell with the day–release, release!
lay me back in gentle brown river uncoiled.

Today’s coffee, pictured above: Double cortado fromĀ  Cafe Tropical, Los Angeles