only once did I sip and sup on a scone in Scotland with a friend and his mother   Yes, cream please, I said as she poured the tea, familiarly mothering the teapot’s top and handle, as steam misted my glasses   I swirled the poured cream - that spoon, no matter how delicately I tried, clinked on the saucer, annoying the silence   a perfect silence, too, relaxed and poised for the soft chatter, that slipped through hot black tea and falling crumbs   and as the tea cooled, word

a dog dies a heart hibernates time slows the world blackens                         then it shifts             a dark shade of gray             next week a lighter shade             next week even lighter,             shades so close in hue             they’re indistinguishable             from month to month             until one day   the sun breaks the night a heart awakens the clock says morning a tail wags

good verse will take you down to the end of the street and knock on a door you didn’t know was there   or it might join another stanza, walk in the same direction except with a sudden turn, lose you   some you’ll follow through a dark forest if it’s a guide you trust and a place you’re dying to see   fantasy-type poetry can lift you off-planet to visit the moon, even hear the wisdom of stars   my poems won’t take you that far   mine come with a kind of mirror one can only jug