Hot Desk: Poetry from Michael Stratford Hutch #3

iv: aftertaste; burnt coffee

 

I spent eternities in that café

waiting

 

asking the room to take its place

at the foot of my table

kick off its shoes and start

talking telling

me                                      everything

 

like spacetime was

just an old friend

 

oh             I waited so long!

for something

(anything)

to come to mind

to scrape the insides

clean of this blankness

 

a hollow river

channelling a bad memory

like the aftertaste

of burnt coffee

 

I seemed to yawn open

cavernous full

of nothing

 

the non-resident who holds their breath

waiting for some impossible wave

to break                 never

 

---

Michael Stratford Hutch completed this poem as part of the Tasmanian Writers Centre Hot Desk residency program.