Watching coffee perk before breakfast, I picture myself a child again, easily amused, as though it was not me who filled the pot, who shook the dry grounds into the brewing basket, who lit the fire.

Somewhere outside this snapshot is a mother, or a father, or a spouse, but right now I am alone in the kitchen letting thoughts percolate in my head as the water bubbles into the glass dome of the coffeepot, at first visible only as a wobble in the refraction of the light through the glass, then gradually hinting at gold, then turning rich brown, the liquor rising and falling bloop-bloop, blurting little abrupt eruptions, little pert spurts of brown surf working inside the dome, a brown eye winking in furious rhythm da-da-dada-da-da like the pot in the old Maxwell House commercials on a busy television day, then frantically dadah-dadah-dadah-dadah—the bubbles peak in apocalyptic apoplexy, the flame is too high. Someone turns it down.

Perhaps it is me; it must be. . . .

The perk-perk is reg-regular now, it seems to be saying—what? Does it make sense? “I know Bo, you know Bo, Bo knows Bo. . . .” It is a camp flag fluttering and popping in a stiff breeze, a pretty lady stuttering and hiccupping at a party, a friendly galoot tap-dancing in cowboy boots. A pot of frogs keeping the pot hopping, hoping the frogs can cope with the hopping pot, or the pot with being hot with hoppy frogs. It is a lighthouse signaling to whatever breakfast might steam its way through my morning fog. The bitter aroma of the coffee seeps into my nostrils as I rest my head on my arm on the table, waiting for toast to pop.

It is the Little Engine That Could warming up for his journey. Or someone talking a somewhat familiar foreign language too fast for me to follow

even if I knew what was being discussed. It is a supercharged heart looking for a body to fill with its gush of love— the same pot that sat on the stove in my parents’ kitchen, now brewing a fresh day from the dark grounds of memories and regrets. The perfume of late-night conversations with old lovers, of warm silences shared with my mate in the half-light of winter mornings. The chatter of my children at breakfast unselfconsciously planning the details of how they will grow up different from me. It is a thing I do for myself, as if I am a guest in my own house. It speaks of companionship, even in a solitary cup. What a happy accident! that I am who I am! in this place on this cool morning! even if everyone I love is away percolating through the world, warming and wetting and tickling it with caffeinated thoughts.

John Calvin Rezmerski was recently appointed Poet Laureate of the League of Minnesota Poets. He has entertained hundreds of audiences around the upper Midwest with his readings and performances, taught creative writing and journalism at Gustavus Adolphus College, and led writing and storytelling workshops for over 30 years. His poems have been published in magazines and anthologies as varied as The Wall Street Journal, Mennonite Life, New Letters, Chelsea, Nursing Outlook, Poems of Exotic Places, The Party Train, The Sumac Reader and Tales of the Unanticipated.

Image by: monettenriquez

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