Learning Coffee

The first time I smelled
coffee beans, I smiled.
I would smell the can
while Mom and Dad
drank that mysterious
black liquid that seemed
like the cup that all
adults must one day drink
and become serious.
Even when I forced myself,
years later, to like the taste,
I used the memory of it’s
smell to search the walls
of its flavor for the door.

Pouring Hot Water into the Snow

Close to quitting time
I turned off the coffeepot I use
for tea and carried the glass carafe
out of the break room and walked
through the cold warehouse.
The water rolled and steamed
as a walked. It look like something
useful still and I felt like I could be
doing something more useful
than I usually do here.
I would like to walk outside
and pour the rest of this water
into four cups, shaking
in the awkward grasp
of four gloved hands.
I would like to splash it
on the hinge of a frozen door
and hear it groan and give.
Instead I opened the white
metal door to the dock
of the warehouse and walked out
to the snowy edge and held
the steaming water out.
As it poured the eight feet
to the snow paved parking lot,
it gave up its heat in a puff
of steam that leaped out
of the thin rope of water,
and climbed up–the same way
we often imagine the soul
leaving a body as it falls,
suddenly killed, to the ground.

Killing Animals

I set up a plastic mouse trap and left the house.
When I came back, I’d caught one. The trap
hadn’t even broken the skin, but the mouse
was dead and I was grateful for the bloodless
counter top and the peaceful look on the mouse’s
face when I dropped him into the trash can.
He still had a peanut in his mouth.

If I should ever have to kill a man, I hope
it will happen the same way: bloodless
and quick, no visible injuries, an open
casket funeral, and a look on his face
that made it seem possible I’d just done him
a great charity–that I’d taken him before
his life got any worse, before he could do
whatever it was I had to kill him for
trying to do–hope still shining in his eyes.

Regeneration

Isabel and I are drawing
in the dirt with a stone and a
stubby twig. First letters and then
round faces with little dot eyes.

She wipes out everything I draw
as soon as I finish. Each face
disappears the moment it’s born.
I’m annoyed a moment and then

I notice I’m getting better
at drawing tiny round faces.
Each one comes a little faster.
Each one looks a bit more alive.

Inside My Home at Night

At two-o-clock in the morning, my light
is the only one on. There's nothing
for the windows to let in so they've turned
on me. They reflect my image as a gray
ghost sitting in a chair so black, it punches
a hole in the window and lets in just a few
dirty gray stars. When I look at the window,
I can feel them at my back, holding me up
with the dim fact of their existence.