Coffee: A Family History
Each morning great-grandmother
made a potful with a lump of chicory.
She reheated it for lunch and dinner,
bitter but never wasted on chilly days.
Grandma poured fresh-perked
and condensed milk into wide rim mugs,
perfect for dunking those delicious
Dutch almond windmill cookies.
Mom sips a dainty cup of decaf
for the sake of formality, while I keep
Starbucks in business, my left paw
curved around my Java Queen thermos.
Daughter haunts a coffeehouse
called Zen & Now by the university,
contemplating the blend of soul and body
with a creamy turtle mocha ---
the cosmic dance of a straw and spoon.
By Lisa Lindsey
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Regis
Connie
Thank you Lisa!
John Michael
Michael D.
When I was a child, one of my favorite breakfast treats from my grandmother was crackers and coffee. We would break up saltine crackers in a bowl, pour coffee over them, and condensed milk and sugar, and consider that our energy for the morning (all sugar and caffeine). We didn't know that it was a poor man's depression breakfast, because it tasted so good to us. When I found that I was lactose intolerant in my 20s, it has been black coffee ever since.