Perched on a high stool, the auburn sybil
eats Fig Newtons, elbows on the sink,
the other lively hand exhorting. Think
through these words to silences. Think to refill
the teapot. The water’s come to a boil.
It’s four A.M. Tea steeps. We pour, we drink
it milky, volley talk, talk, link
lines read out loud from some book on the pile
accumulated on the scarred oak table
to some felicity of memory.
The black cat hums like a fridge. The three
daughters are asleep in different rooms.
Through the steamed window on the garden comes
pearl dawnlight, lovely and unremarkable.
Lovely and unremarkable, the clutter
of mugs and books, the almost-empty Fig
Newtons box, thick dishes in a big
tin tray, the knife still standing in the butter,
change like the color of river water
in the delicate shift to day. Thin fog
veils the hedges where a neighbor dog
makes rounds. “Go to bed. It doesn’t matter
about the washing-up. Take this book along.”
Whatever it was we said that night is gone,
framed like a photograph nobody took.
Stretched out on a camp cot with the book,
I think that we will talk all night again
there, or another where, but I am wrong.