wrestling with change

when the percolator malfunctioned, coffee
went all over the kitchen:
the walls, the countertops, the floor.
well, the two sexy young men
had been in the bedroom
having sex during the percolator malfunction.
when they walked naked and
sweaty into the kitchen and saw the
mess, one of the two sexy naked young men
said "FUCK!" and the other of
the two sexy naked young men
said "GODDAMNIT TO GODDAMN HELL!"
**
clean-up took a long time,
and, during the process,
the two sexy young men
threw the old-fashioned
percolator out into the back yard,
and left it lying there,
like a little gray corpse.
**
then they went out and bought
a brand-new drip-style coffee maker.
they had liked that old-fashioned
percolator, though. it made
good, rich, old-fashioned coffee.
the new drip-style coffee maker
wasn't bad, though, they
had to admit, that evening.
they stood there in the kitchen,
and stared at the new gadget.
"it does look pretty good,
doesn't it?" said one
of the two young men.
"yeah, kind of like a space-age
rocket launcher doesn't it?" said
the other young man.
**
then they went into the den,
watched an old movie on tv,
and, when there was a part
in the movie where an
old-fashioned coffee percolator
was making coffee,
the two young men smiled
wistfully.
"damn percolator," said one of
the two young men.
"but i do kinda feel sorry for
it," said
the other young man,
"lying out in the back yard like that,
all cold and alone."
**
in the morning
they gave it a decent burial,
near a rose bush,
a red one, with
especially big thorns.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem appeared in Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, Issue #3, July 2011.)