New Love does not so much as grow
as suddenly turn up;
delivered in a steaming cup
by one I think I know,
or rather, one I thought I knew.
Allow me to explain:
One morning, blunt with pelting rain
and window light gray-blue,
I woke up to a stranger's face.
Spent passion bloomed her cheek.
Within the brief span of a week
I took a Lover's place--
I, who knew nothing of love;
only passing time
in dervishes of spines entwined,
the finger and the glove.
But on this dismal, rainsoaked morn
I watched her graceful form
rise from the wide bed's quilted warm
like Venus, newly born.
Her bare feet padded from the room
and past the windows smeared
( as eyes become when they are teared )
that magnified the gloom.
Then she was standing over me.
My eyes, when drifted up,
fell upon the steaming cup;
I smelled the scent of tea.
At that moment I had found
to my delight that she,
who did not like the taste of tea,
had wound the bagstring 'round
the white cup's finger ring.
The tab did not fall in.
and I could not suppress the grin.
It seemed so small a thing
and still, I knew that I was bound.
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