Four Minutes Between Sleep and Surgeon (Morning Coffee)

Lyrics

Four-oh-seven AM.
The house is a ghost.
Just the blue light from the machine.
Counting the drips.

My hands are still dreaming.
They remember the shape of a quilt, not a scalpel.
There's a phantom ache from standing twelve hours yesterday.
In my head, a name I can't forget. A chart I read at midnight.
The Bialetti gurgles its last word on the stove.
A hiss of finality.
And I pour you.
Dark and silent.

You are my four minutes.
The only four I get.
Between the man who sleeps
and the surgeon they need.
You are the hot, black line I drink.
The armor I put on.
Before the sterile light, before the steel.
Just this warmth. Just this bitter grace.

I curl my fingers around the ceramic.
It’s a familiar weight, chipped at the rim since residency.
I don't taste you anymore, not really.
I feel you.
A current starting in my throat, spreading down to my fingertips.
Waking up the nerves that need to be steady.
So steady.
Outside this window, the city is still asleep.
But the scrub sink waits. The clock is already running.

You are my four minutes.
The only four I get.
Between the man who sleeps
and the surgeon they need.
You are the hot, black line I drink.
The armor I put on.
Before the sterile light, before the steel.
Just this warmth. Just this bitter grace.

Beethoven needed sixty beans. Exactly.
I just need this quiet.
To hold this heat and think of nothing.
Or to think of everything.
To remember that my hands are just hands.
Until they have to be more.
This is the sacrament.
The silent prayer before the work.

The bottom of the cup.
The last warmth fades from my palm.
Four-eleven AM.
It's time.