Drive

I wish I had a steaming cup of coffee as big as my head I would smell it savor it before sipping from the warm china rim white saucer to catch the drips and the melted chocolate stick they give me but I never eat even though it’s dark not too chalky like the Kinderegg German toy surprise waiting for me in the mailbox from a friend in Toronto for American children aren’t smart enough not to choke on the bubble-gum machine prize hidden inside so I must get my fix from our northern neighbor who spells things with extra letters and says grade 8 instead of 8th grade seeming so exotic and so familiar all at once with her funny handle and nobody sees the face of the other anymore but I talk across the wire across the continent to an ear that only hears letters and punctuation marks as I type but write on a piece of real paper with a stamped envelope giving evidence that I really lived by a packet of saved letters tied up with green ribbon on his shelf somewhere east of Broadway in a basement apartment I will never visit again at least not in the daylight but maybe after an evening of shared pleasantries over another giant cup of coffee we’ll come to an unspoken agreement that I should come back if only to collect my Burroughs and Cohen so long ago borrowed so that our separation will be final with no lingering reminders of me to tempt him to call and expect to meet me at a diner in the middle of the nowhere night only to find that my line is busy I am talking to somebody else who meets my words with more words not silence and knots of charged particles and atonal sounds and riots of similes no it is more civilized now I am years older and I have almost forgotten how to drive fast with no headlights because I am wishing for my big cup of coffee to drink all by myself.