Coffee

She walked past the coffee pot, that first morning

Asked me how I like my tea

She took off her shoes to tread 'cross the grass

For the sunrise after a long night

She breathed in the fog of early morning

And exhaled her thoughts over the rim of a glass

Of a strong red, and I watched her lips

Knew her to be my intoxicant

She called the sunset bittersweet, like me

Asked how I had escaped her dreams, and refused to sleep

Without an answer

I often wondered how she had managed

The same, life was strange in those spaces

Between the beautiful and the deranged

Where we welcomed the chaos of the day

As openly as the cool eve, where the stories were transcribed

To sheets, who knew sleep

Only under the weight of exhaustion

Only by closed curtains

Who fought back the dawn stoically

She'd race me up mountains, and dare me to breathe

I'd chase the taste of her lips with a single shot of whiskey

She'd write her thoughts in the palms of my hands

I'd draw mine in murals across her back

She'd walk past the coffeepot, every morning

And ask me how I liked my tea

And I'd answer again with what I said then

"In the right company."