Its own and unmistaken flavor

Poems about coffee, and.

Photo by Adrien Olichon on Unsplash

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These poems were not written as a pair, but they do have a through-line. Actually, more than one.

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SOLITUDE                                                                                  2023


I take to it
the way I take my coffee,
fresh and familiar every morning
to wake me up and calm me down,

laced maybe with a drop of something
to smooth it out — music low on the radio,
soft clatter of voices from other café tables — 

but first and last its own and unmistaken
flavor, sipped at through the day,
so each thing tastes like both itself
and what it’s soaked in.

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4 P.M. AT THE CAFÉ BIENVENUE                                          2023   


Each afternoon, an hour before closing time,
Mr. Host begins to circle the angled, spacious room,
his soft broom stroking the scarred wooden floor,
and Mrs. Host behind the coffee bar begins
to clatter dishes in her tiny sink, drowning
the quick quiet voices at the next table
and the jazz on the radio, drowning
whatever you thought you meant to write next
in your notebook or across your laptop screen.
A reminder that soon it will be time to say goodbye
to the twinkle-lit plastic grapevine above the coffee bar,
to the silent piano lounging in a corner,
to the high ceilings and drop-down lamps,
to the scatter of unmatched tables, and the mural
of a Paris street scene along the back wall;
time to look instead at the street outside the picture windows,
at the door through which Mr. Host will soon tug in
the wheeled planters, geraniums drowsy after their day
on the sidewalk. Time to look out and remember
that this spacious angled room is not your home,
that even the Hosts live several streets away, as you do
in a different direction, and in an hour or so
it will be time to thank them and say goodbye, 
say au revoir to the Paris street scene, walk out the door
and down a street you know. Time, though, here and now, 
for one more coffee, Mrs. Host will pour it with a smile,
then turn back to the clatter in her sink where she is waiting
for one last cup to close the rite that ends the day.

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Coffee is one through-line, of course. Another is the nature of solitude, how sometimes you really do want to be by yourself alone and sometimes you want to be by yourself around other people who are busy living their own lives.

I live just a block away from Cafe Bienvenue (which is not its name, but close enough), and I’m there a lot. Once or twice a year I’ll actually arrange to meet a friend there. Most of the time, though — and we’re talking two or three times a week — I’m there on my own, with my notebook or a library book or a crossword puzzle or occasionally some knitting. I go there, most often, when I can’t settle down in my quiet apartment but I don’t really want to socialize, either. Smiling at Mrs. Host when I place my order, scanning the room for a table, hearing the voices and dish-clatter and Sinatra-heavy musical soundtrack as I settle in … it’s enough to let me feel connected and still, blessedly, by myself.

They do pretty good business at Bienvenue. Any time I visit there are usually a dozen or more people there, speaking at least four different languages. A “Shut Up and Write” group meets there weekly; lots of people rendezvous there for study dates or business meetings or just for coffee and banana bread and gossip. And there are always three or four like me, by themselves at a table with a book or notebook, a laptop or a smartphone, alone and in company at the same time.