Emily Sunderland

Adjectives for Coffee

Stirring black
coffee I see myself
            Like in your pupils
 when I’m red and raging
or plain staring
                                                            Floating inside the blue bands
and your skin
especially your neck
smells like dew on blossoms at night
            when you undress             you throw it all on the floor

And I unravel
            into a thousand honest pieces
                         watching you come toward me
                                        more than the bed is too big
for the rope that we wind into like
            you hate snakes
but I’m not sorry I pretended to see one
                        that day in the woods when we
and I got bug bites on my god
            I say to myself as I take a sip of my coffee.

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