PRESSED

Slopping whiskey in my midnight coffee cup
makes me think of balance,
Zen medication charred oak casks,
a Kentucky koan, bourbon Buddha
sort of question, about my original face
before my mother and father were born.

Yin and yang coffee cream swirl blossoms,
Oneness, a fluid still eye of Emptiness staring at me,
cup handle eyebrow raised
as if waiting for an answer.
Insomniac’s inquiry, burning midnight anointing oils
and incensed by my own nerve to write …

I’ve got nothing. No lotus truth floating
in my reflection, no Right or Noble Path -
just this burning sense warming my palm
as I raise a potter’s cup to my lips.
I’d better come up with something,
let the words sing in their Tibetan bowls

or at very least embrace October’s chilling blade wind
slicing through the window screen, the impatient
tapping as moths seek sanctuary at the sill,
the heartbeat of symphonic humming
as crickets rub their violin legs –
and dark roast night rolls over my tongue.

Sipping, warmed, I decide my original face
was paper white. Unwritten.