Coffee

I bring the porcelain mug
to my face
warm my sleepslow fingers
and inhale.

The steam.
The steam.
Misty morning hillsides
fertile loam rich
raindripping trees
and a scarlet tanager sitting
below and to the right
calling and driven
to mate.
He returns a thousand miles
to the tiny wilderness
behind perfect glass and concrete
where inside, the earnest woman
(with the tiny chicken pox ding)
and the meticulous man
(with no visible scars)
make complicated love
shouting silent screams
through entwined limbs
tight strings choking a vacuum brushbar.

There are Indonesian dockside bags
packed with cascading beans
and a child's plastic toy
that somehow slipped inside.
"Shhhh," says the mother
far inland.
The girls cries vinegar tears
but she will never see the toy again.

your steam
(eyes closed now)
your steam
is heartache
and wet dogs
crackling firesides
steak and motor oil
adrenaline
and thousands of heartfelt
sexual offerings.
your earthy laugh
buoyant breasts
and the musty bookshelf backrooms
of shaky vernacular architecture.
The pounding of joy without sentiment
into cracked barren streambeds.
Violent guitar solos
screamed on lonely roads
and righteous tempers
disguised as popcorn movies.
you are sandy cartwheels
and screaming leaps
toward me
bungee-tethered
to hard realities.

I remember
how your steam
deep and rich
at weary dawn
rolled into my nostrils
(I breathed you so deeply,
a gulping, starving man)
and revived
my parched
heavy head.