Ed Pilolla: "Favorite Mug"

Your day is like your favorite mug.

You fill it with the necessary stuff

to survive in this world.

Those days

let me be the seasoning.

Other days I get to fill it with your favorite brew

as well as mine,

vanilla and chai leaves and

inside jokes

and a dollop of raw honesty

and honey.

I will gently blow on your day

when it's too hot,

cup my hands to share in the warmth

and fill it with spirits along the way.

Never will I leave your mug

on the countertop with coffee grounds

at the bottom for days.

Don't judge me by my propensity to blast Van Halen

or how I casually enter the bathroom

to brush my teeth while you're peeing

and not pick up on that unhappy look on your face.

Judge me instead by how I thread my fingers through the handle

of your day,

lift the rim of your world to my lips

and drink in your story.

"Favorite Mug" by Ed Pilolla. Text as published in Dragonfly: A Book of Love Letters (CreateSpace, 2010).

Art credit: "Red Coffee Mug," oil painting on canvas, by Kit Hofer.