V: Vietnamese Weasel

The Wishbone Alphabet – an experiment, of course, with attitude, life and the eponymous soup.

Specific moments of deliberate enjoyment can be embodied in a scrumptiously eye popping cup of coffee. Still love a splash of Java Sumatra, and Guatemalan Elephant, but since the discovery of Vietnamese Weasel, Va Va Voom! The aroma of it sends me… back to my honeymoon (explaining the big love hit) back through history; into a place of hot fascination, a place that steps with me, out of time, into the construction of a personal mythology. Specific moments of deliberate enjoyment can perk up everything, even if you wake up too early.

My decision is to make coffee

And sit, watching the colours

Change, outside; the pink

Underbelly of mackerel cloud

Somewhere in the fridge is a tin

Of coffee. This week we are drinking

Vietnamese Weasel. I picture the sacks

Of beans on the quayside in a monsoon wind

Maybe this started as a practical joke

But whoever ground up the beans from

The weasel’s poo was on to a good thing

Although the flavour in this tin is synthesised

While coffee brews in the jug, I will

Be organised, drag the washing from

The lovely machine that undertook

Hard work for me as I slept

Whirl of wet fabric in the basket

Waits for me to locate some boots

And a mug for the coffee, and wonder

If it’s too early to wake the dog

Dog thumps her tail in a slow beat

I turn off the lamp we forgot last night

And gather up the glasses and appraise

The unfinished list of things to do

The washing up is waiting, is one of

Those little repetitions that marks out

Your life, this history in coffee rings, in

The medium of smeared food stains

Two boots located, the washing is brought

To the line, another confirmation of our

Continuing adventures, pegged item by item

Optimistic plastic fastens the corners

Occupational debris stuffs up the shed

This morning the light strikes a low

Wall of old car batteries, behind me

My shadow slopes on an old door

Close my eyes to focus on

The fusion, the notes of coffee

Dark cocoa musk, bituminous

Coal, tar, smoke, burnt sugar