My Black Mug

My black mug sits on the table, watching me,
holds my drink, my cold water and hot tea,
my coke, milk, and coffee.
My humble mug: Silent, patient, loyal, lovely.
Fit for a king or queen.  For heaven.  To hold the sea,
the air, the creation.  You will always be
an anchor in my life, the hero behind the scenes, the kindly
soul who offers to feed the need in me. 
My ceramic wrinkled with cracks, filled with memory,
of touch and trust, you are as real as any
other meaningful reality.

Cookie

The bedroom air is perfumed
with the aroma of coffee
and freshly made bread.
A tall glass of orange juice
sits next to a closed window
that overlooks a garden.
Past the garden of dancing tulips
and blue hyacinths in bloom,
invisible from the house,
lies an empty lot,
that long ago belonged to a church
and once to a lottery retailer.
Here a halting ant,
having lost the way home
in search of food for hours
in the storm the previous night,
comes across an old ad
for Ant-Killer bug spray.
But a series of gusts
lifts the two of them,
the ant and its magic carpet,
and finally places them
next to the house where
inside someone is now baking
trays of cinnamon sugar butter
and chocolate vanilla pinwheel cookies.
The ant is flooded with scents.
The door is suddenly opened.
A child runs out laughing,
eating a cookie, a small piece
of which falls right next to the ant.
That's the way the cookie crumbles.
That's the way the cookie crumbles.

Do What You Love

Looking back at me, the slight counselor,
her head framed by thick shelves of dusty tomes,
strands of her grey hair stuck to her collar,
her crinkled dirty-blue eyes twitching still,
too dim to guide my heart’s drifting vessel,
said to me, “Do what you love,” in a tone
as though coming from bottom of a well,
not a shout, but an echoless whisper
of love that lives only to speak these words,
for when it stops it’ll recall the thirst,
heart afloat in ocean of salty tears.
So she drank her coffee and asked, Who’s next?

Accident

He seemed, well, almost good today.
Toivo, you can't get your hopes up.
Yes, but his face wasn't sallow—
Is that one yours?  I take mine black.
Yes.  No, this one; with two sugars.
The doctor though was such a prick.
They love being told what to do.
He's my only child!  Just because—
Don't say the word Kukka, please don't.
I think your coffee's getting cold.
Rest assured I will sue the guy.
Kick him, myself I'll knock him out!
No need, I will do everything—
A mom's knuckles can beat blind courts.
I hope his surgery goes well.
He's a boxer!  I need a smoke.
I need air too...stuffy in here.
Don't forget your coffee, let me—
Oh, do you see that leaf in front?
The scarlet one?  One on the car?
Yes, Del's lips used to be that red
Where's my smoke?  They will be, Toivo.

Eliot

Where did Eliot write his poetry and prose?
At home or maybe some coffee shop close?
It's safe to assume he'd take his black coffee to go
Should women there be talking of Michelangelo