Particle Dregs

Your old hermitage of irregular-placed stone
stands crooked against the tallest pine.
--Chia Tao ending couplet


At the bottom of my cup,
the coffee dregs
that slipped through the filter.
I drink them down,
imagining the bowl you built
from dust swept off the workshop floor.

Each particle a blasted star.

Do Ethiopian grounds
make strong bones
or hard arteries?

The bitternesses of last year
still claw at my tongue;
my New Year's resolution
is to say "fuck" less.

My hermitage of irregular-piled stones
doesn't lean against the tallest pine.
It rides the train.



by jerry gordon
1.11.07