Coffee
You drink yesterday’s coffee
microwaved, hotplate burned
whose beans, scraped from the floor
of some damp dungeon
whose piped-in aroma
invite nausea
not the gentle amphetamine rush
of brewed fresh ground beans
and you call that good coffee.
That Canadian classic, that double-double
lives, they say, only twenty-minutes in the pot
but still tastes like tar sands slag
unless you double double-double the cream
inviting clogged arteries atop your caffeine boost.
Funny: how every shitty cup of coffee here
fuels my longing for Melbourne
where every street corner barista
knows a good roast, a good grind
a long black, short white, or mocha
not handcrafted with love
or other nonsense
just perfectly brewed
thrilling those taste buds
to jitterbug on my tongue