advent journal: coffee break

it began as a ploy
to get them to finish
their vocabulary
who could blame me
on a high school
friday afternoon

“if you finish
your assignment
we’ll go to caribou” –
they made quick
work of exercises
already past due

and we walked
across the parking
lot to our lattes
with the novels
we carried as cover
to fool the front desk

we sat in a square
sipping our way
through the dregs
of a long week
taking in the aroma
of fleeting freedom

and I asked
“what do you think
of the book?”
and we conversed
like people who had
gone out for coffee

God put on skin
and wore it to death
to love and to listen
as a human being
I dropped my guard
for thirty minutes

left my question
unloaded as I asked it
and found the coffee
and cookie samples
communion enough
to remember

Peace,
Milton