October 3, 2004:
Coffee Cream Swirls
Coffee cream swirls
In my cup
Thin streaking across dark thick oils
Making marble clouds
Thick and heavy
Floating over thin and wispy
A hurricane or a cyclone
Now twisting like an old arthritic spider
Or a dizzy octopus
Or squid shooting ink
But tendrils of white juice
Slow curling arabesques
Like a fetus in a turn
Now a Munch painting
With all that quality of horror
Now a classical piano player
And, oh, I see Ronald Reagan
A caricature, what was that show
Spitting Image
He rumples like a deflating balloon
Now looking like a used condom
Spreading
Sinking
Slipping
A burnt-out archipelago
Thin paper island maps
Tired old crispy cracking debris
Into which I at last drop my sterling spoon
And stir
Impatient now to warm and awaken my sleepy head
SS