Percolator

I bought
a stove top percolator
to replace my broken French press 
which replaced my messy single cup maker
which replaced
my unrepairable
12 cup programmable drip machine

People on the street
stared after me as I walked to work
as if they knew me
for an eccentric
and how I had filled the stainless steel pot
with fresh cold water
and measured the tablespoons
into the basket
as it sat upon the hollow stem
and put the basket lid on and then
replaced the top of the maker
with its glass dome 
and set it on the gas flame

How I’d waited for the first sound
of the perk and watched 
the good brown bubble up

How it smelled in the sagging kitchen air
How it tasted with my eyes closed
How I’d tried to figure out
how long since
I’d last made coffee 
in a percolator — forty years?
forty five?

Is that long enough
for this coffee to be retro? 
Am I hipster now,
Luddite so far behind
I’m now ahead?

I don’t care
I must have needed to do this
for I remembered something
about myself when 
while measuring in the coffee
I covered the hole in the stem
with my other thumb
to prevent grounds from falling in
and getting into the water
and getting into the cup

It’s the care
my father taught me
to take
when you make coffee 
in a percolator