To start the day

Mornings, I sit at a round-ish table,
my bare feet tapping against the faux wood grain,
my jungle of knotted hair bobbing to the
beeping garbage trucks, rolling through the alley.
On the counter,
a hand-me-down Mr. Coffee presses 202-degree water
through finely ground beans, stripped from a Honduran farm.
At some point, I will ache upward to the sink,
where I sometimes fill an empty Burger King cup with the leaky faucet
to feed my ashen plants, limping from criminal
neglect (how can I always forget?).
Outside my spidered window, I see a littering of homeless men
in Nikes and jumbled dreadlocks pissing on the dumpster
as the garbage truck clears, and I know it’s time
to start the day.