The Barista Said Nothing

There’s an ache that begins somewhere between

the throat and the wrist,

a quiet trembling for the cup that will never taste

like the morning on Via dei Coronari –

where steam curled around the day like a prayer,

and the barista did not smile,

only nodded once, as if to say: “Sei arrivata.”

Here, the beans are roasted too timidly,

the milk froths like gossip,

and every café insists on its constellation of stars –

a Yelp sky full of false prophets

pointing me toward their collection of travel mugs.

I chase them all the same,

like Orion hunting the ghost of a deer

he already knows he’ll never catch;

me, stalking the ghost of a sip

that once made me think, this is what heaven is like.

Each café void of devotion.

I taste and taste and say: Almost.

The tragedy of almost is that it keeps you hopeful.

You hold the cup, watch the crema break apart,

and feel the heartbreak of minor heat.

Sometimes, though, the stars align –

for one holy instant

the aroma opens like a psalm,

the heat hums against my tongue,

and I am back in that narrow Roman café,

soft light catching the steam in my cup

like thin silk caught in an invisible hand,

rising, forgetting, reforming –

a small, vanishing cathedral

where the hunt ends,

and the found thing

becomes lost once again.