Adventures

As the house settles into the missing weight
of one man and his suitcase,
lukewarm coffee cools on the table.
Around the porcelain mug,
still sticky from the man’s lips,
she wraps her hands
to save his breath
on the greasy surface.

When the absence of heat
in the cup is certain,
she wakes her fingers and disturbs
the morning’s long embrace
between china and bone fiber.

Fingers curl in and out,
as a nest of blood
rushes to heat the white veins of her
half moon hands-
like two dusty homes
abandoned by once loyal tenants-
they lay silent, shaped by the dirtied
edge of the man’s remains.

Days pass. Stale breath
hovers above the cup, and
as he did, evaporates.
Still, in his absence
she envelopes the porcelain, heats it
with skin, and forces knuckles
tighter with each breath.

And when finally the man returns, parched
from his journeys, his many lives,
he sees her, cradles those crescent
hands, and knows.