Chamomile Tea V Coffee

Dusk settles like fine dust
when streetlights escort
evening into hallways.
Nightfall has attached itself
to the shoulders of ordinary people
carrying stories and news,
usually exuding on inhalation
of ritual warm kettle steam
through herbal nostrils.
Tonight is different –
his eyes still have big, black
dark circles underneath.
Just write poems for me.
Don’t tell me about your day.
She knows he’s secretly
hoping cupped china
will somehow soothe the aftershock
of his news as it wields its blows
like sledgehammers,
nailing her heart against the chipped
plaster ceiling;
its throbbing veneer draws his eyes
which bear cross-hatched shadows,
subdued and worn from penumbra tears
that fell only a few tea breaks ago.
What kind of woman is she
to make you want to do this?
It was by the coffee machine
that the sun began to fade
on all their stories
and memories; yellowing pages
turned into ghosted
fragments when shot to flames
under florescent tubes
only to dissipate with the aroma of coffee –
meanwhile, her aroma happily swirled
inside lipstick and white froth.
She sips her chamomile, redolent of betrayal –
Don’t tell me about your day.
Don’t shed the dust.