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Darling Coffee

1951 –

2018

The periodic pleasure
of small happenings
is upon us—
behind the stalls
at the farmer’s market
snow glinting in heaps,
a cardinal its chest
puffed out, bloodshod
above the piles of awnings,
passion’s proclivities;
you picking up a sweet potato
turning to me ‘This too?’—
query of tenderness
under the blown red wing.
Remember the brazen world?
Let’s find a room
with a window onto elms
strung with sunlight,
a cafe with polished cups,
darling coffee they call it,
may our bed be stoked
with fresh cut rosemary
and glinting thyme,
all herbs in due season
tucked under wild sheets:
fit for the conjugation of joy.

Meena Alexander was born in Allahabad, India, in 1951. Her poetry collections include Atmospheric Embroidery (TriQuarterly Books, 2018).

About Meena Alexander

Occasion

Themes

About this Poem

“In order to make a wedding poem for my friend Leah, I drew on something that has almost become a ritual—each Saturday morning my husband, David, and I walk north, to the farmer’s market by the woods of Isham Park at the northern end of Manhattan Island. Then, bags laden with fruit and vegetables, we go for coffee. Sitting in the coffee shop I started to conceive of this poem.”
—Meena Alexander

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More by this poet

from Grandmother’s Garden

I am in another country. On a morning of clear sunlight, I walk into a garden thousands of miles from where grandmother lived and died. I speak of the Heather Garden at the mouth of Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan, a stone’s throw from my apartment.

Meena Alexander

2020

Stone Oven

Kasr Avenue was where the birds lived,
In a mud silo millet seeds flourished
 
All winter long and through the dry season
Laila was in my soul, also Majnoon’s madness.
 
I was a girl growing up and you, crossing the
Nile—yes a flat boat is all you had—
 
Came in, trousers wet and flapping,
Sat down with your back to me.
 
Hunayn ibn Ishaq the great physician
Thought of the heart as the oven of the body.
 
In the Grand Hotel the waiters wear
Cummerbunds, always maroon, over tunics, white
 
I asked for a lemonade with crushed ice.
Majnoon lived with his goats in the desert north of here

Meena Alexander

2018

Night Theater

Snails circle
A shed where a child was born.

She bled into straw—
Who can write this?

Under Arcturus,
Rubble of light:

We have no words
For what is happening—

Still language endures
Celan said

Meena Alexander

2012

Poems

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Darling Coffee

More by this poet

from Grandmother’s Garden

Stone Oven

Night Theater

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