Neither of us takes it out anymore

since I discovered their affair,

the coffee mug she’d sent him. He’d lay

 

its lip in his mouth,

tasting her in steaming sips

that soaked his tongue.

 

Dust clings to the cup,

a deserted totem.

Their romance is history,

 

so I think of setting it out for him,

this small thing.  But then

see it as he might,

 

once warm against his palm,

now cold as a queen’s tomb, haunting

under its patina of fine powder.

 

How like our marriage with its three tenants,

us in the kitchen, her

lodged in the back of the cupboard

 

as he makes our toast, I make café au lait,

reach for a porcelain bowl

he’ll need to hold in both hands.