The Last Drop

In the final words before the noose
Your neck tautens in apprehension,
The brown milk stirs lazily as the cup rises to your lips,

The barista stands in black behind his altar as
A shock of steam bursts like a denunciation into the air
& a line of customers stand before the chrome expresso machine,
Chaterring, polite & desperate in their sin,

The bliss of the first caffeine hit surpassing
Those more pedestrian stimulants -
(cigars & whiskey & mild mild women).

Here as the last drop falls, the biscuit breaks
Like the body of Christ on the wall in fourteen staccato images
Down through ripples of brown & white caffeine,
Swirling into redemption (until lunchtime

Rae Desmond Jones
3 November 2007