afternoon poem

coffee

two cups of dark heat,
colored by creamer
to be the shade
of my mother's skin in summer.

if you get close enough to the cup
to feel steam
on your earlobe
(not that i did...)
you could hear the crack
of my single ice cube,
noisy fissures and splits.

it's gone now
swimming and whirling
through my veins
making my hands jump and leap to someone else's
strings

i am the jagged edge

letters i did not choose form on my page
words unspoken yesterday
bubble up and pop
out of my mouth
in the wrong order
i'm faster than light
or i was

it's wearing off
my two cups of java water that takes me
from human to
heroine

for the span of an three hours
i wonder
where i put my cape.

***

william carlos williams was a doctor. he wrote during the day, on perscription pads. one of my favorite poems ever is his red wheelbarrow poem...

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

i think of him whenever i'm sitting at work composing something on a peice of notepaper, or leftover memos, or even in email. email makes poetry all too possible at work.