Coffee has a surprising reason
For existing
It's meant to keep a person
Out of the flow
To trick a person
Into believing that the flow through the grounds
Or the steam through the machine
Or the percolation through the half-a-can
Creates a night-ish flow
Through every morning
While instead
Taking one out of one's body
In the the false thing
That Descartes called the mind
And worrying about whether one has flow in one's life
To separate one from oneself
By saying "one": to refer to oneself
Instead of me
Or I
And when I've left myself behind for the "one"
I'm ready to use my anxious fuel
To burn the fires that I'm asked to tend
For if I don't
My one might be erased to a zero
Even as the coffee flows from my mug
To my mouth
And I don't see the edges
Of the flow
Of my life
And of the specific thing I'm touching
And seeing
And yet
Coffee's flow
Runs through me
As I flow through
This poem
That feels as though it might be
flowing
Roman Ryan 