Burnt Coffee Fires the Memory

Cheap coffee, burnt taste on a February morning

stirring memories through the grounds.

An echo of an echo, inescapable, but never found.

I remember that taste.

I remember, also, that taste is nine-tenths scent.

and nothing makes sense anymore

in the same way it once felt.

In the winsome, wistful way in which nostalgia always exists

the taste is enticing, almost on my tongue.

Too sweet to be important, too bitter to bear,

I only sense it secondhand – in the absence of scent

there is smoke without fire.

I am burning a breathless, flameless inferno,

an echo of a nameless, senseless desire.