“Life from the Perspective of a Coffee Cup” and “The Season of Almost-Gone”

Today, I begin as a hollow “O”:

a ceramic lung waiting for the steaming pour,

the sensation of an honest heat.

Mostly, I am grateful for the hands:

the way they cradle my frame.

Not to own. Never to own.

But because they are cold,

and I am for a few moments their only source of warmth.

As a coffee cup, it is a heavy thing to be held only by the ear.
To be the bridge

between the ruminator and the loop.

I feel the tremor of your thumb and remember, fondly,

that oh, we are both so full of jitters and chips along the rim.

That is why I know your secrets so well.

I know the weight of your silence.

I sense the frantic telegraph that is your pulse against my lip,

asking if what you’re doing is enough,

if you will ever be enough.

That is why I settle softly in the cupboards,

the quiet white space where the pulse goes still.

I hear your doubts from the outside in and I know

I would rather be here, trembling in your hand,

catching the heat until my walls ache.

I spend my days holding what you cannot hold yourself.

You are so full of shaking

that I take the heat in your place.

I let the dark liquid sit in my glaze,

until I am stained the color of long-ago mornings.

Dear, did you notice?

The light has thickened

into a bowl of cooled-down clam chowder,

& I find it doesn't fill our kitchen

the way it used to in July.

The sun just leans against the doorframe,

already wearing its coat,

already checking its watch.

The trees have undressed

‘til they are but skinny,

skinny dippers in the frozen pool.

Shed heavy velvet robes of green,

robes of green like discarded clothes,

like discarded clothes on a bedroom floor: everything is leaving.

Everything is leaning towards the end of itself,

Yet still I find myself

thinking of you.

Everything is drifting

in the almost-gone,

yet I am still in the habit,

the stubborn habit

of white-knuckling,

reaching back for spring.

I am still reaching

for the skeleton of spring,

unashamed & freezing for you.

I still look for you

in the spaces

between the wind & the leaves.

I still look

for a puff of breath

& the things we’ve yet to say.

I want to tell you to stay

until the radiators stop humming;

I want you to tell me if we are perennials: still stuck in the dark.

Don’t you notice, dear;

don’t you notice the clock.

Let’s stay here,

in the almost.

Before the white sheet of January touches the bed.

Before we decide who we are

when nothing is blooming.

Let us linger in the almost.

Let the frost have the windows, let the shivers take your skin,

while I bask in the slow, steady woodburn

of your sprightly pulse.