Because You Asked Me
Someone, somewhere, looking down at the small
mountain of sugar, melting into the lake of half-and-half
in the bottom of my second cup, once asked me
“Why?”
.
and I, almost full of morning unction, replied,
.
“Not black,
because already the void in my brain is
dark matter, absolute and unfathomable. Until the
bridge is built, sometimes I speak and
even I don’t know what I’m talking about.
.
“But sweet,
because stars sprinkled ‘cross the unpolluted nightscape, fall into
dunes of ephemeral delight, caught with this cup,
awaiting only a liquid vehicle to join the tide in my veins,
where they sweeten the bitter tang of my natural tongue.
.
“And light,
because it leads me, like the moon; awakens me, like sunrise,
softly beckoning my soul to brightness;
bringing comfort to my raw nerves, and buffering the space between
my acerbity and those not yet knowledgeable,
or civilized.”
.
And then I smiled.