The Coffee Cup Erupts

The coffee boy fills it up barely to the top, and then the liquid grows, expanding past the lip, through the holes in the lid. I pour some into the ivy covering Bryant Park. But it continues to grow, and drip over the side, onto my hands, onto my white blouse and blue strappy heels. One more vexation on a long morning, thinking, is this what I want to wake up to for the rest of my life? A hot walk to work. Coffee in a paper cup fighting me every inch, pleading to go back to the pot it came from, to the beans it was ground and brewed from, to the airplane it was shipped here on, to the plantation and the farmers’ hands who picked them, to the bushes those beans grew from, the earth and water it fed on, to the sun, the sun, the sun, that gave it life in that dark chocolate earth. I press the elevator button. At least it’s cool in here. And walk to my desk, setting the cup down. The coffee now stays neatly in the cup, its top stained with the rust marks of this morning’s eruption. Lava or blood? Dried coffee stains are like watercolor, darker at the edges and soft, opaque at the center. Now, maybe, I can think about drinking it. Somehow, coffee isn’t as much fun in the summer.