'You, Your Mother and I'


There’s a lopsided, thin halo of light

around this white coffee mug

that probably hasn’t been washed in decades.

I went to pour the coffee

and flicked a piece of glue from the rim.

Now I’m reading the bottom,

underneath the murky golden drink

like a divine arrangement of tea leaves.

There are black ground specks

sliding along the porcelain, like a field of dead flies,

and rings of tan stains

on the inside of the cup, faint relics of everyone

who had been here before me.

A white saucer, bowl and mug are laid out before me,

and it reminds me

of how you wrote about coffee,

the magic bean elixir of a thousand hands,

spilling over a saucer,

‘dimly lit and unknown,’ you said.

Remember when I kissed you in the pool?

How your hair was matted to your head

and I watched from the side,

as my feet dangled in the deep end

and you floated in a raft,

cigarette and beer in hand?

I woke the next morning, lying next to you

in the smallest tent,

our bodies falling out of

damp sleeping bags.

I took my shirt,

kissed you on the cheek

and stumbled out of the zippered door.

I think your eyes opened

but I left before we could say anything.

I was so good at that summer routine,

but this time would be the last.

They never woke up.

I lit my last cigarette on the way home

to nurse another hangover

and saw a hot air balloon.

The morning was blue and golden,

the kind of light that hurts your eyes

from every car window.

I’m glad you and I will never pick things up again,

though we had tried a handful of times.

I should have listened to my mother.

She’s usually right in the end.

Still, I’m happy to see you floating around

in the bottom of a mug once in awhile,

the memory of you

still able to be read like a Tarot Card.