This Date Is Just for Coffee, Right?

I’m not sure I still know what coffee is.
Is it the bean? The grounds left in the filter?
Is it what’s filtered into a plain mug
or an old cup of mid-century china
and may or may not taste the same in both?

Is it the molecules that I inhale,
which signal “coffee” even while inserting
some actual caffeine into my bloodstream—
is it the message or the medium—

something to spill, something once spilled to make
the worst mess of my life?  Is it remains
or was it the beginning,

the taste, the spark of — what?  Only itself?
Nothing is only coffee.

Claudia Gary

If you have any thoughts about this poem, Claudia Gary  would be pleased to hear them