seltjörn

Waiting for the computer to come to life again, gazing off into the falling snow outside with one hand draped over the rim of my cup, I am about to forget that I have made coffee at all -- the toasty smell overpowered, perhaps, by the room's other scents of cold air and warm dog -- until one sleepy fingertip grazes its surface. I look down and see the pupil-black hole I have inadvertently punched in the crema. Fissures extend outward from it in all directions. It looks like an aerial photograph I once saw of a seal's breathing hole in the late summer sea ice, meltwater streaming slowing into it. Now I will will be able to watch the ice break up as I sip the level down. The snow is still falling.