there’s a small, green coffee bean lodged
in the back of my shoe, and i keep walking on it,
for a few feet, then a few miles,
i go up and down the highway in my shoes with a small, green coffee bean
digging into the arch of my foot,
scraping away the fabric of my socks,
until the bean has embedded into the heel of my foot,
finding its way up my achilles,
then calf, thigh, until the small, green coffee bean becomes
just another part of me, a piece of particulate fully integrated
into my bloodstream, into my brain where it invades my thoughts,
so now it’s all i ever think about
this small, green coffee bean that started out
ping-ponging around my shoe
Fred Aiken Writing 