once again the kettle swells
and for that split second
wherein the whole world instinctively still calls your name

light disjoins from dusk
to dance in spindrifts ’round the empty kitchen

where the cup awaits your lips
to exchange per habit its sunkissed oceans within
for another day’s intimate history

but then the birds race home through the wound of nightfall

and the cup, and the kitchen, and the world
remember how a child has died of old age

how no warmth shall infuse you now
and no smile nor sigh shall ever again flow like gold through its cracks

and once again the sheer magnitude of love
drowns within a handful of shade.