Mr. Coffee 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker Haibun

By: Graham Murtaugh

My friend has taken to sleeping in his unheated workshop. He dreams among his many planes and gouges and knives. The tools of shaping. He wakes at five-thirty, makes a fire and sits with his

breath. His blade-nicked hands run over and over the strange end-grain of his marriage,

searching for splits.

The new Mr. Coffee 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker gurgles while the Cubs lose quietly in the background. A lit American Spirit cigarette trails incense. Leaned towards the fire, his hands form a soft bowl for prayer. It holds less than it used to. He thinks of his boys. Thinks, how long

will this last? How long can I last? Thinks, this is for the best.

He respositions, pressed against another day, against what it means

to find himself

so full

of desire.

---

Graham Murtaugh is a licensed mental health counselor and unlicensed poet writing from the ancestral lands

of the Puyallup people in what is now Tacoma, WA. His work has appeared in Abandoned Mine, BOOTH, Gold Man Review, 

The Oregonian and various anthologies. He has released an illustrated chapbook, There Is No Safety (Self-Titled Press, 2013).