Poems and Lovelorn Thoughts, Vol. XXV

Sunday Tea

I sat down to tea with Sunday

And he was nothing like I thought he’d be.

The chairs in his porcelain drawing room

Felt rickety and plush, musty velvet in

Gaudy chartreuse. We drank out of

Eggshell cups thin as bird’s wings, with

Veins like a bat. He served cookies shaped like

Pineapples, for hospitality, I guess, but they tasted

Of ginger, which was strange but pleasant at the same time.

We said little, but our conversation was still

The best I’ve ever had. I think we said more with

Our silences than either of us had said in a lifetime.

After the tea was all gone and we couldn’t eat any more cookies,

He went and got my jacket from the front closet and walked

Me to the door to say goodbye. I left alone and walked home

Under the gray sky. You know, there’s a chance

He might invite you over some time, one of these days,

And if he does, you should go. He has this way of making you think

About things you never thought about before, of seeing colors in yourself

You never noticed. The cookies aren’t too shabby, either.

And the tea — the tea glowed when I drank it like some sort

Of fantastical algae; magical little flowers floated in it,

and they tasted like honey and truth.

That taste still lies on my tongue

Like a fabulous itch.

Manuscript

Slanted right, leaning left

With a gap between your teeth, when

You were just a child you wrote

Tomes of your own language.

You are a letter sent to

Everyone, you are the box of

Letters in the box of a station

In the tower of a clock,

You are the half-scraped sticker

On the post of the streetlamp,

You are

The very words

You speak.

Remember

Every

Star

In

The sky

Proves

That

You

Are

Here.

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