Time Study

The coffee was cold so I said so. I said,
my coffee is cold, and then I repeated it
but with a variation, something like, my
coffee is cold and I said so, and then, I
said I am glad my coffee is cold because
I get to say so, and I said my coffee is cold
like the Sahara at night, and I said the Sahara
is a lot like my coffee, which has cream,
and it is cold which means I have to say so
or someone will say to drink my coffee,
which is cold and the camels are asleep.

Let’s try it again, I said, taking a sip of coffee,
and then not taking a sip but still holding
the cup and I said look at the cup and see
if you can see the Sahara and then I said,
it was in there a moment ago but I took a sip
and it is inside me I suppose, and I said then
the same thing, my coffee is cold, and also,
this coffee is cold to make sure they knew
which coffee, not coffee as coffee but coffee
as a part of the whole and also immediate
in some sense, like waking in the desert.

I write a lot about coffee, I said, and I said,
I just need to see who my friends are, the ones
who will stay till the end, and I added, I do not
take death as a personal insult, and I said it was
good to repeat things but not ideas, and I said
it was not good to repeat ideas, and I said also
it was good to repeat things, and I said my coffee
is cold and I can say so and I said when I say
my coffee is cold it is part of something bigger
that can last as long as I say it is, still is, and then
I said my coffee is still cold at this time, still is.

Copyright © 2013 by Marvin Bell. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on September 9, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.