Black Sun Espresso

It is the hour

of the small, white chalice,

The hour when the shade of the house leans toward the soul.

Behold: the scorched bean,

the nocturnal seed of the abyss,

Has surrendered its ghost to the iron heart of the furnace.

Under the terrible weight of a thousand sighs— This pressure of years,

this silver breath of the machine—

The

essence is

wept into the light.

See how it descends, a

viscous ribbon of ancient

time, Darker than the memory of a

king, Yet crowned with a veil of ephemeral gold,

Is it a drink,

or a prayer in the language of soot?

I hold this tiny vessel of solitude against the cold.

It is the bitter syrup of the earth’s own wakefulness,

A concentrated lightning that does not strike,

but infuses

The tired blood with the phantom of a lost vitality.

One sip: and the fog of the hallway recedes,

The forgotten names of childhood stir in the dregs,

And for a fleeting moment,

the heart is a clock

That beats in time with the primordial furnace.

Oh, brief and burning truth!

A black sun held between the thumb and the finger,

Disappearing before the steam can tell its tale,

Leaving only the scent of a burnt kingdom

And the long, clear silence of the afternoon.