LatinosUSA

Though your musings have become
as heavy as rocks,
and the years have grown dense
inside of you,
and blood no longer fills your arteries eagerly
but oozes like marsh waters,
and your nerves respond to stimuli
as infrequently as buses show up at the stop
to take you to your doctors,
it’s still you laying out the teacups,
cream and sugar, and offering to pour.
The pot you’ve carefully nurtured
with steeping bags
and steaming hot water,
is like a trophy for the times
you still can lift those rocks,
expose a thought or two,
and your body shakes off
its drab fixation with time
and the life flow’s not so turgid, mired,
that it can’t follow the course set for it
by a pattern of genteel heartbeats
and your tongue can savor
the flavor from your favorite Ceylonese leaves
and announce to the world,
«Perfect.»
We sip, we talk,
and it’s like payday for memories.
You stow your complaints.
come down on the side of the good times.
And you do pour my cup
even though your hand is as shaky
as a poster in the wind.
All of this aging has conspired
to rob you of who you once were.
And yet you don’t spill a drop.
«Tea anyone?» is your savior.

Copyright © 2025 John Grey
All Rights Reserved

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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Sheepshead Review. His latest books Between Two Fires, Covert and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon.