Muscle Memory

The coffee was a boiling trap.

Now the tip of it is a numb,

deadened territory

where the flavors go to flatten.

I bit the side of the muscle today

while telling you I was fine.

I felt the copper tang of it

filling the spaces between my teeth.

Every word has to climb

over the rough, white hills

of the scalded buds.

I’m talking around a knot of meat

that won’t let me say

exactly where the heat began.