COFFEE
A mistake at the deli
gets me my mother’s coffee:
‘regular,’ normal once, in that time
when sweet and light and regular
were what life should be.
I drink mine black,
bitter, machismo.
I laugh when people wince
as if I never longed to be
soothed by creamy sweetness,
by thickened normalcy
hanging behind my teeth
like crinolines.
I’m too impatient
now, at the deli, to think about this
or about my warm dark
mother sitting in the kitchenette,
back to tiny window,
sending irregular curls of cigarette smoke
into a dance of swans and geese
rising with steamed milk
in her numbered mornings,
believing in her dying
that her bitter daughter
would lighten, someday
trust sweetness, be soothed.
I asked for black
the counter woman nods
but sighs as she takes the cup
as if she sees what I will not
embrace, will not hold onto
long enough
to taste.
