A Miracle for Breakfast

At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee, / waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb / that was going to be served from a certain balcony / —like kings of old, or like a miracle. / It was still dark. One foot of the sun / steadied itself on a long ripple in the river. // The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river. / It was so cold we hoped that the coffee / would be very hot, seeing that the sun / was not going to warm us; and that the crumb / would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle. / At seven a man stepped out on the balcony. // He stood for a minute alone on the balcony / looking over our heads toward the river. / A servant handed him the makings of a miracle, / consisting of one lone cup of coffee / and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb, / his head, so to speak, in the clouds—along with the sun. // Was the man crazy? What under the sun / was he trying to do, up there on his balcony! / Each man received one rather hard crumb, / which some flicked scornfully into the river, / and, in a cup, one drop of the coffee. / Some of us stood around, waiting for the miracle. // I can tell what I saw next; it was not a miracle. / A beautiful villa stood in the sun / and from its doors came the smell of hot coffee. / In front, a baroque white plaster balcony / added by birds, who nest along the river, / —I saw it with one eye close to the crumb— // and galleries and marble chambers. My crumb / my mansion, made for me by a miracle, / through ages, by insects, birds, and the river / working the stone. Every day, in the sun, / at breakfast time I sit on my balcony / with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee. // We licked up the crumb and swallowed the coffee. / A window across the river caught the sun / as if the miracle were working, on the wrong balcony.