Milk For Breakfast

this is a Sunday poem.

Why is the milkman flashing

His leery little smile, this morning

As he takes a coin from my shivering hand?

Perhaps he saw the red mark

Near my lip

Where a mosquito bit the flesh last night

And sucked my blood, warm and red.

"There are no mosquitoes in November," he must have said

To himself, but I know better.

 

The 6 o'clock train whistles.

The rasping of aching metal joints drowns

A yawn from my room.

Together, they blend

with the filmy blue of a late November morning.

I put the milk on the stove and I stand,

Rubbing

hand against hand,

Waiting for the little bubbles

To break the placid whiteness.

The train whistles again

And carries away its cargo of flesh and dreams

tied together with tight thread.

I imagine the train

As it pierces the darkness like a bullet

Though I know that nothing' slower

 Than a train.

 

If I keep scratching the mark on my lip

will it tire and disappear,

or perhaps expand?

Some Vaseline could be useful

Mama would have said

But Vaseline reminds me of old ladies' skin

Creamy and lined and tired

 

 

And so is the drone of the milkman's motorbike

As he leaves the neighborhood.

Now silence could linger some

if it chooses, before the day begins.

I, on the other hand, have no choice

but to stand by the stove,

rubbing

hand against hand

waiting for the little bubbles

to break the placid whiteness

knowing

that eventually, they will come.