I want to serve you Sumatra,
the wild, mossy, mushroomy
dark of it. I want to serve you
the muted black song in a white cup,
so you can, if you listen closely,
hear the birds of Southeast Asia
with their foreign calls,
hear the farmer as he hums
while he picks the coffee cherry,
as he removes its dark red skin.
I want to serve you the scent of moss,
so strong you find yourself laying in it,
staring up at the sky through
the canopy, laying there for hours
forgetting anything else to do.
Will you find there, too,
the hint of old leather, a favorite
belt, a favorite shoe, something
familiar to slip into? Dark in the cup,
dark like midnight, dark like two a.m., dark
like the silence that finds the world then.
Dark in the cup, like fathomless space
where a small voice whispers, stay awake.
And there, in the cup, the gift of a place
where we have never been, but
together, perhaps, we could sip the Sumatra
and visit again and again.