Poem for Monday and Pokemon Teas

Tea 

By Carol Ann Duffy 

I like pouring your tea, lifting

the heavy pot, and tipping it up,

so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.

Or when you're away, or at work,

I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,

as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.

I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –

and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet,

for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.

Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,

I love tea's names. Which tea would you like? I say

but it's any tea for you, please, any time of day,

as the women harvest the slopes

for the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,

and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea.

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Rain was forecast all day Monday in the Seattle area -- an atmospheric river -- but we really only had drizzle in Redmond. So I spent more time walking in the neighborhood and at the park than I expected, though I spent most of the day unpacking and arranging my books, now that all my Shakespeare and play scripts are here and the handful of academic books I saved. Plus we took a trip to Safeway to get necessities for the week, particularly cat food. 

We only saw the end of the Orioles game, but they won (the Mariners were off). We just finished watching Eric, which was...well, wildly uneven, some great performances but some didactic monologuing and I think it should have committed either to being a story about how mental illness impacts one family or one about racial inequality, homophobia, and poverty affecting all kids. I have to show off my awesome Fancy Accent Tea Company Pokemon tea set: