Caprice

I don’t know why
one day a book seems ordinary
and badly written
nearly unreadable
and yet two days later
or five years
I can pick it up and become totally absorbed
in its magic
nor why occasionally in the morning
my coffee is bitter
even though I use the same amount of water
measure with the same scoop
heat to the same temperature
and pour it through the same type of filter
usually it tastes just fine
but sometimes
like this morning
it tastes awful
and short of having a chemistry lab
or a two thousand dollar
coffee grinding heating filtering gizmo
the only conclusion I can come to
is that the difference is not in the coffee
or in the process
it is in me
or a petulant minor god

Marv Himmel
August 2, 2016 ©