The can lived on the second shelf, lid pressed on crooked because the plastic had warped in the dishwasher once and never sat flat after. I pried it up with a thumbnail. The seal gave with a small suck of stale air, coffee smell coming off the grounds flat and brown, the real smell, not the one on the bag.
The scoop was a tablespoon that lost its handle to a garbage disposal in another house. Now it was just a bowl of steel you pinch between two fingers. I dug it in.
Some mornings the scoop comes up rounded, a little landslide of grounds sliding off the heap. Those are the mornings the day has already gone wrong, or looks like it will. A hard scoop. Then a second one, leveled off, for insurance. I wanted the water to work.
Other mornings the scoop comes up shy. Barely a scoop. The day looks easy from here and a thin cup will carry me to noon without complaint.
I never measure. The line on the pot is a suggestion I stopped reading. My hand knows the weight of a Tuesday.
Too much and it comes out bitter, a scorched edge on the back of the tongue that no milk fixes. Too little and it is brown water, warm and pointless. The scoop splits the difference by feel, and the feel changes with the light in the window.
Today it came up heavy. I did not decide that. The hand decided and I watched.
The grounds went in dark against the white filter. A few missed the rim and scattered on the counter, and I left them, because the water had already started to knock in the kettle.