Coffee and Caffeine

In the kitchen, a
tension that blinds a man-
grinding coffee beans,
his pestle to her mortar.

He sits watching-
beads of fear
pronounced on his upper lip
thinking, and poised

any minute
the abrupt sight of her
head-in-profile
thrown back in a laugh!

His anxiety over
that anticipated gesture,
knowing at that moment
certain he will lose her-

meantime
the crushing weight of silence
is anything but silent.

Of coffee beans
being pulverized-
she agonizes over the grist,
and he the caffeine.

A sweat bead bursts
drawing his eyes together;
pulling angst from his pores
while he plots.

At the sink, her thin white slip
contradicts her purity; he furrows-
what does she think this is,
a goddamn wedding?

He stands his chair on two legs
feeling his brain burn
as it screams
No! It's a fucking beheading!

This is bestiality
so close to the sun
where a grain of sand
weighs a ton times a ton...


The coffee percolates.