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Deep Coffee, Alone

by Alan Harris
Suburbs (proud arks upon a primitive sea)
leak.

Today a female heart has gone funny--
funny like the strangest way a heart can feel
and still beat.

Quiet on her white couch,
drinking gourmet coffee,
she wrestles with inner intrusions
not covered by her insurance--
uninvited bass notes
are troubling her treble reality.

All is in place outdoors--
sunshine properly warming her acre,
fertile lawn greenly framing
her sporty car aglitter in the driveway,
white patio furniture gleaming
from acceptably jaunty angles.

But indoors, wallpaper blurs near the couch.
She cries--longly, profoundly cries.

Her architected home has no ears
for such snappings of heart,
nor is her healthy lawn
in sympathy wilting.

Her white couch, red car, green lawn,
and petite palace of prepared comfort
seem like checkers, smart but alien
on a board whose game has fallen
deep into chess for keeps.

Coffee and courage by now cool,
she meekly questions the silence:
"What is happening to me?"

Body, calm.
Mind, thoughtless.
Heart, electric.
Silence, holy.

(Cup needs rinsing.)





From the book Thunderbolt Blooming (1994)

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