I can’t seem to forget you
Your perky, naturally curly
eyelash grins up at me from
the bottom of my tea
It winks at me and dares me
to rinse the cup
one of those behemoth 16-ounce bowls
nearly full, it would require a complete
emptying, all of that love
poured down the drain.

Eyelashes are funny things
In tea, they are tragic, at the very least
with the loss of all that tea, but
let’s not dwell…let us consider
I might retrieve the lash
grasping and likely missing the smirky smile
submerge my less-than-precise fingers down deep
through the still, orange ocean
heat claiming the shea from my hands
spoiling the tea for drinking.

Next might start with a hunt for
tweezers and a rummaging
through drawers and trays, followed by
an executive decision, my being
the only one, here, on a method by which
to sterilize them…
soap, scalding water, fire or maybe
alcohol…presenting yet another problem
rubbing or liquor,  but by any means
one done
the tea would be cold and so
I look to the microwave, of course
but didn’t Deepak Chopra say on television, the other day
that the microwave kills food?
I believe “dead” is the word he carefully selected
and spoke with his impressively impressing accent, oozing with authority
as he proclaimed microwaves unsuitable
and by the way, he doesn’t like freezers, either, or
anything from a can and
everything from a box
which leaves us nowhere to turn but away from our PopTarts to
learn to cook or subsist on raw vegetables and seeds
but I tell you right now…
I am not giving up butter
or my uncured bacon and, I am so, so glad
that you cook for me
even if your girly-curly
eyelashes
fall from your manly lids
into the tea
you make
for me.

~