Breakfast

BREAKFAST

Dark-headed coffee is a keen companion

Of depth and wit,

Finely calibrated scientific instrument.

Swinging his censer just below my nostrils,

He slays my logic with perfume.

“What crow has stolen your words?”

He asks. “Has your eloquence

Turned into baubles in his nest?”

I pay no attention to the ribbing.

He is too valuable a vizier.

I mine gold every morning.

I take my breakfast like a king—

To my right salted fish,

To my left steaming rice,

Fresh egg is the jester.

Butter, a bird, is eyeing the bread.

Milk dives smoothly into coffee.

Sugar disappears, memory of a dream.

A cock crosses swords with the day.

Things to do arrange themselves,

Tallest to shortest.

Digesting a bolus,

I rise ready to run the next marathon,

Wakeful as a bat, electric as a hawk.

Originally published in Anak Sastra, Issue 22 (January 30, 2016), pages 63-64

...electric as a hawk.