Margaux Griffith

COMMUNAL TEA

I don’t normally drink tea
if I want bourbon.
I drink tea with honey
because you offer.

Your honey
tastes like caramel.
Our shadows laugh
between flecks of light.

*

I feel the sun off the waves of tea,
curled like an oolong bouquet.
I slide to your shoulder.
You turn towards me,
awake but still sleeping.

Steeped in dark and light,
our silhouettes outline the wall
and restlessly wait for me.

*

I am gulped in light.
Your anticipation simmers a constant ripple
like the slow bleed of a tea bag on saucer
and beads of scorched sugar—
I choose silence.

I want your roof to open its tight jaw
and let the late noon burn
our sun-prints into the wall.

*
Your candle dances for itself.

I dance
next to your flame,
in the shadows we cast.

*

I drink tea cross-legged on my kitchen floor.

My honey tastes like chamomile,
the forgotten quiet
that waits to be remembered.

With all the lights on,
there are no shadows.
______________________________

Margaux Griffith is currently a MFA poetry candidate at Oklahoma State University. She was the Honorable Mention (2012) for the Academy of American Poets Prize at OSU. Her work has appeared in Cellar Roots and The Writing Disorder.