I sat down
At this table

Before

So long now I don’t remember

But the cup of coffee
Which started
Steaming,
Black
Without stars
Turbid and turbulent
And bitter and sweet in turns,

Is almost finished.

It has grown cold in my hands.

But lost none of its body.
The oily press against the tip of my tongue,
The pool of bitters in the bottom of my mouth,
The silk against my throat,

Cold
but satiating

I wish, I wish, I wish

There were another cup,
Beyond the hue and cry of this table,
Beyond this wind and this word and this flesh

But I can see the bottom of the cup
Through the smallness that remains.

One more drink and it is done.

I would wish to sit.
Soak hot sunlight into my bare feet.
Or open my nostrils wide to the frosts,
And breathe,
And breathe,
And breathe,
Till this last dram evaporates on its own.

But. That is not for this cup.

This cup,

Holds the last of it.

And the draught which stays in my hand

Sings sweet songs,
Night songs,
Parting songs.

Not a siren’s song.
Not a call upon the night.

Only songs from the deep stretches,
Of green cloud-skittered forest,
Where high on black volcanic soil
This coffee caught starlight,
And in some elemental dance
Of alchemical fire
Purged water and soil and sun
Becoming more than all.

And it comes across in this moment,
As a small voice,
A note half heard
Through the movement of breeze on late summer leaves

Singing to me.

Home
Away
Beyond

To a tune I do not know.

I wish, I wish, I wish

But wishing moves nothing

One drink is left, then all is done
And nothing shall make it differently
In this world where so much bends to our will
This last holdout remains.

So soon I will raise this cold cup to my lips,
And savor
What remains.
Till I flood with blackness,
And the stars shimmer apart,
Break free from the orbit where my eyes fixed them
And spin up beyond and out
To the points they belong.