In this kitchenette, so often occupied the last few years
here we find ourselves again. Drinking coffee, too hot, 
powdered creamer, no sweetener. Small talk looms 
large; big hugs get harder to come by. Anxiety screams 
at me to “help”, offset the unwelcome-ness that  
might/not 
be all in my head. 
Try sitting instead; reaching for your silence
across blue laminate round.   

Sipping at scalding funeral coffee
and all I want to look at, is your hands  
their grace, even in the fidget  
dark veins trailing up beyond
white cuffs. I love their bearing
warmth from cup to mine.  
Those hands, deliverer of so much more than that:  
farrier-gentle forge and crucible.  
Such generous shapers of future;  
of life and light.