[AMBIENT NOISE]
Sure is hot up here.
Next poem is called Family Cups.
It's about eating dinner.
The first sorrow comes from the first hope.
I place two cups beside each other,
and all the confused voices return, with their enthusiasm
and pain, bickering for a place at the table.
These two cups are perishable as the moments at a family
dinner, when the father is attentive,
the mother is too busy to polish the silverware.
The two boys are made of metal, as they play with toys
and make a clamor.
Two cups on the table.
Wide open flowers eager for a common life.
Coffee you can't see through is a humble substance.
Over the steam and the image of a face,
we sit down or stand up.
Excusing ourselves, conversations are interrupted.
Moreover, something is lacking.
Someone is too happy stirring the grounds in a jealous cup.
A family at dinner is one long drama,
needing that frame to be heroic.
There are other ways to look at it.
These two cups-- chipped, cold pleasures of the mouth--
fill and are emptied.
And after dinner, two boys may gaze out a window
at stars being born, filling the heavens' faces,
where each of them wanders in his solitude.